Pathway to Japanese Literature

Dedicated to Mr. Kitahara Hakushū

Preface to the Person Who Hides Rare Things

From Hagiwara’s current two-story house, the roofs of townhouses around Hongō Dōzaka were visible, and through the grove, a red triangular Chinese-style flag would always flash into view each time one passed by.
Lately, as the young leaves in the grove had grown thick, unless the wind blew and stirred the trees and stems, that red flag could no longer be seen.

“What a shame you did that.”

However, Hagiwara maintained his usual indifferent countenance even at these words of mine.

One morning, Hagiwara showed me a bound sheaf of manuscript paper.
It was the bound manuscript from when I first read Hagiwara’s poems thirteen or fourteen years ago.
I tried to say something after finishing reading, but the impression I had received was so delicate yet piercing that instead, I silently turned back through the manuscript and read it again.
And indeed, the impression that resounded in my head was profound.
It was the kind of tear-inducing pleasure that strikes deep—the sort one feels when watching an excellent film.
I immediately recalled my own old poems and perceived a certain depth within his indifferent, seemingly unconcerned demeanor—the nature of one who, like Hagiwara, had written fine poems yet kept them from the world so long.
He was a man who seemed to perpetually harbor some rare treasure in secret.

May 21st morning, Saisei

Author's Preface

To commemorate the days of gentle purity that filled my past, I decided to publish this poetry collection, delicate as autumn leaves.
The poems in *Poems of Affection* are all works from my boyhood—nostalgic memories from when I first began writing poetry.
The poetic style of this period was strangely elegant and carried somehow the scent of iris perfume.
From the perspective of today's poetry world, it would likely seem quite old-fashioned, but for its time, it was a rather rare style.

In any case, publishing this poetry collection was not to seek its critical appraisal anew, but entirely to reminisce about my own past. One might say it constitutes nostalgia toward someone’s personal history.

The ten *Hometown Landscape Poems* are comparatively recent works. I composed poems about the small rural town where I had long resided and its surrounding scenery, infusing them with my own subjectivity. The reason I attempted the classical literary style in these poems was partly because something stirred intensely within my heart and I desired a vehement tone, and partly because these were lyrical poems of pure sentiment. In any case, the content and style of these poems remain matters that cannot be separated, as far as I am concerned.

*Poems of Affection* and *Hometown Landscape Poems* differ fundamentally in poetic sentiment because their periods of creation are vastly separated.
(Consequently, their rhythms also differ.) However, as both share a pure sentiment style and are poems in classical lamentatory diction, I compiled them together into a single volume.
From the perspective of my general poetic style, this collection would rather be considered an unusual variant.

There were quite a number of people who understood my art at any rate.
There were some who had always known both my character and my daily life.
However, acquaintances who viewed both my art and life were nearly nonexistent.
Only two friends maintained close contact with me in both poetry and life.
One was my Tokyo poet friend Mr. Muroo Saisei, and the other was my hometown poet Mr. Hagiwara Kyōjirō.

This poetry collection, being not only a collection of poems but also a memento of my past life, is precisely why I requested two close friends to compose both the preface and postscript for this book.

Spring 1924

By the author in a small rural city near the Tone River

Upon Publication

Last spring, after completing the manuscript for this poetry collection, a full year had passed until today when it finally came to be published.
During that year, I left my long-familiar hometown and moved to Tokyo.
Thus by coincidence did this poetry collection come to be published meaningfully as a memento of my departure from my hometown.

Hometown! If I now gaze upon its landscape from afar, a myriad of emotions wells up in my chest.
O sorrowful hometown!
People showed me no kindness and always glared at me with cold contempt.
Simply because I was unemployed or deemed an eccentric, they mocked this pitiful poet and spat behind my back.
“There goes the idiot.”
With that, the people stuck out their tongues.

From boyhood, through these long days, I endured within my environment.
And so transcendent thought—peerless in its otherworldliness, hating society, people, and nature, seeking to rebel against everything—and intense thinking that favored rebellion had, before I knew it, gnawed a nest like mice into a corner of my heart.

How can I not? How can I not change my thinking?

Now at last I understand the solitude inherent in human wrath.
And then, escaping my hometown home, as I crossed the city overpass alone, tears began flowing without reason.
The train ran on toward the horizon of the endless railroad.

Hometown!
To my beloved land, I wish to dedicate this humble collection of hometown landscape poems.

Summer 1925

By the author in the suburbs of Tokyo

*Poems of Affection*

*Night Train*

The pale glow of dawn's lingering light
Cold finger marks on the glass door
The mountain ridge faintly whitening
Serene as dull metal though it be,
While the travelers' sleep still lingers,
Only the weary electric lamp's sighs hang thick.

Even the heavy scent
Even the vague smoke of Hamaki tobacco
On the night train—a desolate tongue's loneliness—
How must the married woman tense her body and lament?
Has Yamashina not yet passed by?
Loosening the air pillow's valve,

A woman's heart that softly lets out a breath,

Suddenly two press close in sorrow,

When gazing out from the train window near dawn,

In some unfamiliar mountain village,

So purely white bloomed the clusters of flowers.

Heart

To what shall I liken the heart?

The heart is a hydrangea's flower.

Though there are days it blooms peach-hued,

There remains nothing but pale purple memories.

The heart is again the butterburs in a twilight garden.

In the resonance where soundless sounds tread

Though the heart grieves as one,

Though it grieves, to what avail?

Ah, to what shall I compare this heart?

The heart is two travelers.

Yet since my traveling companion never speaks,

My heart is always this lonely.

Woman!

Lips are tinged pale crimson.

The scent of face powder lies white and cold at the collar.

Woman!

With those rubber-like breasts,

Do not press too strongly upon my chest

With fingertips like those of a fish,

Do not too cunningly tickle my back.

Woman!

Ah, with that fragrant sigh,

Do not gaze too closely upon my face.

Woman!

Cease that playfulness.

Because you always do this,

Woman! Thou art sorrowful.

Cherry Blossoms

Under the cherry blossoms, a crowd of people had gathered and sat.

What might they be doing to amuse themselves?

I too stood beneath the cherry tree, yet—

My heart grew cold,

Even at the scattering petals, tears alone spilled forth.

Alas,

Now, at midday of a spring day,

Though I am not one who has obstinately gazed upon sorrowful things.

Journey

Though I long to go to France,

France is too far.

At least wearing a new tailored suit,

I will set out on a whimsical journey.

When the train travels along a mountain path

Leaning against the blue window,

I alone shall think of happy things.

Dawn of a May morning

The tender grass sprouting at heart’s whim.

Goldfish

The goldfish's scales were red,

The loneliness of the color of those eyes.

Though cherry blossoms bloom and burst open,
To such extent,
My sorrow—having cast myself into lamentation's abyss.
Still Life

Still Life's heart is rage.
Its surface grieves.
Reflected in this vessel's pale eyes,
The green at the window's edge is cold.

Tears.

Ah, already I devote my heart entirely.

The time when I longed for someone other than myself has passed.

Nevertheless, on this day too my heart is sorrowful.

What manner of love is this that my tears cannot be contained?

Though I do not find people hateful in the slightest,

What am I to do, tears having spilled upon the bedding thus?

Now at last I come to think of myself.

Tears are not shed for others' sake—

I lament solely in pity of none but myself.

Antlion Pit

The antlion, to catch ants,

At the bottom of the pitfall trap, it lurked hidden.

In the antlion’s greedy eyes,

The antlion’s flickering flames burned—ah, how dreadful!
At the softly crumbling sound of sand cascading down,

When the antlion, startled, came dashing out of its lair,

For some reason, something red and long was running there.

On the antlion’s black limbs

The blazing sun beat down on a summer day at the height of noon.

The tears shed by a barely-there insect

Glimmered upon the grass leaves and vanished away.

They vanished without a trace.

The Banks of the Tone River

Yesterday again I thought to cast myself into its flow.

I wandered along the banks of the Tone River,

the river’s current flowed swiftly,

and as there was no way to dam my lament,

I remained shamelessly alive,

coming again today to the riverbed to throw stones and while away the hours.

Yesterday—today—

this joy of cherishing my utterly futile self so dearly.

Who would dare try to kill me?
Only through embracing—through embracing—could I have properly wept.

Seaside

Being young, even those eyes looked sorrowful.

Alone and apart, I descended the sand dune.

My toes slid down the incline.

The crumbling sand fell steadily away.

For what reason this youth, O?

In the shadow of this body, ephemeral plants that came into bloom trembled.

The lament of youth cannot be scooped up with a shell.

Past noon, the sky was suffused with a pale blue-gray.

The sea was wet with tears.

The damp waves churned.

What fish could it be that glittered on yonder distant shore?

Being young, I ventured out alone to the seaside.

Without making a sound, I cut Western paper and played with it.

In the idle play of this unbearable day,

Seagulls crossed the endless horizon.

Green Shade

The morning's chilled meat lay cold upon the plate.

The water dropwort tinkled against the rim of the sake cup.

Hidden in the leaf shadows of deep summer enkianthus

Leaning on the rattan chairs in the arbor, what might those two be speaking of?

Glittering fountain water spilled and scattered.

Safflower, borne upon the tailwind, became one with the fragrance.

Being by the side of a good person, what would I speak of?

Involuntarily I thought of Enechya no Kaanibaru.

In eyes of yours so tender

Does even the shadow of sparrows crossing the sea not reflect?

From the beginning, our discourse—

Like naming Itousuki’s fragile glass beads.

While I wetted these white paving stones

Gazing at the rustling shadows of green leaves,
You and I—
How lonely—the tears of two people flowed forth.

Reunion

On the plate dance meats and fishes.

Spring and summer having passed,

In your hand, a silver hairpin doth rest.

Ah, the depth of autumn.

On smooth stones crickets sing.

Eeteru breaks through the glass,
The reunion’s kiss lies frozen hard,
The mist remains faint in heaven’s farthest corner.

Behold! Through heaven and earth flows mercury.

Solemnly the plate slid.
The bracelet was gently removed from your hand,
Pearls scattered and spilled away.
The lamplight dampened by the wind.
These fragrant paving stones awakened to silver's sorrow.

Earth

Being upon the earth

The day when beloved things stretch forth.

Even what dwells in deep sky's reaches

Quietly melting into calm,

The phosphorescence was faint upon the treetops.

Now I lean against a distant slope,

Upon the beloved things indeed

My shining hand seeks to extend.

Gazing out, they lay arrayed upon the low earth,

Endlessly the farmland churned.

Vaguely, beloved things stretch forth,

All things gathered in one place,

I stared fixedly at where my finger pointed.

Ah, pitiful—even the state of such a day.

The sun, in the lofty void, serenely observes.

Flowers and Birds

The day of flowers and birds has come.

The day cycles.

In the capital, birds peck at tree buds.

My heart alone shines forth

Quietly parting the water's course,

Now at last I fish by the shore.

Deeply immersing hands in river waves,

If I grow intimate with that dampness,

Thus gently embraced,

Are there girls and children?

Ah, radiantly they emerge together,

In the capital I stand resolved,

Even the scene of flowers and birds appearing in distant view.

Impressions of Early Summer

Insect blood flows and seeps.

By all things expending semen,

This earth is bright and
From the woman’s white finger
Gold coins slip from my hand.
Now was the beginning of May.
Saplings swayed forth into the street.
With peeping cries, the sprouts burst into bud!
Behold! The landscape flows mightily forth,
Rising clearly against the blue sky,
Deep within, it clearly projects people’s shadows.

Nickel Silver Plate

Searching through the thick grass,

For what desire do I call out?

Winding through, snagging on leaf undersides,

My fingers drenched crimson still.

Through day's length I keep running

Where deep in grass lies forgotten

The nickel silver plate I seek.

My sorrow swallows me whole

Beneath peach-pale daylight's glow

Glistening white with welling tears

I go seeking that nickel plate

Buried deep in grassy depths

Where is that nickel silver plate?

Moonlight and Jellyfish

Swimming through the moonlight
I try to catch the swarming jellyfish
The hand stretches away from the body
Ceaselessly stretched out into distance
Entwined with mugwort
Immersed in moonlight's water
Has my very self turned to glass?
Cold and translucent flows ceaseless
The soul begins to freeze
Sinking into depths
As if drowning I pray exhausted

There and here they swarm,
Trembling in azure,
Jellyfish swim out through the moonlight.

*Hometown Landscape Poems*

Middle Schoolyard

In my days at the middle school,

I was tormented by glowing passion.

Enraged, I cast down books.

Alone, I lay sprawled in the schoolyard grass.
What sorrow was this?
The azure flew far away.
The sun beat down hotly on the hat.

Hatei Pavilion

Were the days of youth so moved by things?

I leaned upon the second floor of Hatei Pavilion

and was submerged in sorrowful passions.

In that pavilion’s garden too plants and trees grew thick,

The wind swept through with a howl, yet—

Did that old awaited one exist, or not?

In days of old, with a pencil

a name had been carved even upon the railing.

Futagoyama Vicinity

My regret has soured.

Lonely—should I chew the dandelion stem?

I walked alone along the ridge path.

Exhausted, I sat on a hillock in the wilderness—
What vista passed yet never ceased to fade?

Suddenly, a train raced through the distant landscape.

My mind was agitated.

Saikawa Town

――Late December――

A mountain range gleamed in the sky,

And a white snowy wind.

Lately the roads had worsened,

The roads were soaked with melting snow.

My gloomy hometown city

Above the lined-up row of townhouses

As if peering into that fire watchtower,
Already past eaves adorned with pine,

Passing through Saikawa Town, I saw Akagi.

Windows upon windows in these northern outskirts

Let them be sealed black with soot.

The sun already yielded to frost.

Many handcarts passed through the alleys.

Koideshindō

As for the newly opened road there,

It doubtless ran straight through to the city streets.

I stood at this new road’s intersection, yet—

The desolate horizons in all directions did not reach their bounds.

O gloomy day!

The eaves of sunlit houses hung low,
The grove's mixed trees were thinned out.

How can this be? How can this be? I must change my way of thinking!

Along the path I did not take in rebellion,

All the new trees were cut down.

Shin-Maebashi Station

In the fields, a new station was built.

The toilet door was battered by the wind.

The reek of paint persisted fiercely amid the stifling heat from the grass.

O fierce day!

I came to this station, my throat parched beyond endurance.

Nowhere did I see a shop that sold ice to eat.

The vast expanse of wheat stretched flowing into the distance.

Why was there nothing I could hope for?

The calendar of sorrow ended.

My heart, unable to endure the violent pain, resolved to set out on a journey.

Ah, clutching this battered suitcase I staggered forth—
I became like a starving cur with none to pity me.
Now sunlight towered over station fields beyond,
Where farmers' hoes had felled each dandelion stem.

When I stand alone on the desolate corridor,

Ah, from some distant place,

Like the roaring sea, I knew emotions came grinding forth.

Ōtobashi Bridge

There spanned the long bridge

From that lonely Sōsha Village, it doubtless ran straight through to Maebashi Town.

I crossed there and came to know the passage of desolate emotions.

The traveler loaded luggage and hitched a horse to the cart.

What a frantic bicycle!

When I crossed this long bridge,

The dusk-starved emotions became painfully oppressive.

Ah, I remained in my hometown yet went nowhere.

The anguish of adversity that seeps like salt reached its limit.

Already I was growing old in solitude.

Why then should I speak of today’s fierce, bitter rage?

Now I tear my wretched book

I intend to cast all things into the passing waters of the Tone River.

I starve like a wolf.

Frantically clinging to the railing, though I gnash my teeth,

Helpless—tear-like things overflow and

They trickle down cheeks and flow unceasingly.

Ah, I was base from the start.

The traveler loads luggage and leads a horse.

On all these cold days, the plain’s sky is about to dusk.

Hirose River
Hirose River flows white.
When time comes, all illusions will vanish away.
Attempting to fish for my life,
In days past, I cast a line by the riverbank.

Ah, that happiness has passed far away.

The small fish went unnoticed.

Tone Pine Grove

Sunday noon

My pleasant jests overflowed in the grass.

Buds had yet to sprout.

The boy’s sentiment burned red through the trees.

All friends imagined the warm arms of the opposite sex.

Ah, having come to this ancient forest of memories,

I alone sought to gaze into the heights of the azure sky.

Whence came this thing akin to melancholy,

Ah, the day that secretly touched my back.

Now the landscape had already withered in late autumn.

I press the heated stone to my mouth

I frantically attempt to swallow this heated, saliva-like substance.

Park Bench

Leaning against the unpeopled park bench,

The thoughts I harbor today too are fierce.

Why do those from my hometown treat me so harshly?

I am resolved to bite into this sorrowful plum pit.

On the distant Echigo mountains，snow shone．

Does wheat too tremble and shudder at human anger？

The voices that mocked me filled fields and mountains．

The scream of agony burst my heart．

To such an extent，

they cling to heartless things．

Ah，trample underfoot this soil where I was born！

I have a knife sharpened keenly with my fingers.

The Season of Leafing Cherries

I carved the characters "revenge" into a lonely chair.

Map of Maebashi City

After the Hometown Landscape Poems

Ⅰ Maebashi Park

Maebashi Park was made known to the world early through Muroo Saisei’s poetry.
Gazing out at the dry riverbed of the Tone River, they had planted many cherry trees along the embankment; usually no strollers came, and in the lonely sunlit patches of lawn, only scattered paper debris lay about.
They had placed sorrowful-looking benches here and there.
When I was in my hometown, I would come here with hands in my coat pockets and, leaning against the ever-deserted chair, sit like a crow as was my wont.

II Ōtobashi

Ōtobashi Bridge was constructed in northern Maebashi, spanning the upper reaches of the Tone River.
An iron bridge, its length was said to span half a mile.
Crossing the bridge from Maebashi, one emerged into the desolate villages of Gunma District.
When one gazed upon it, its end remained unknowable.
Shining in the winter sky, it was a bridge of infinite sorrow.

Ⅲ Shin-Maebashi Station

In the morning, those who departed Tokyo for Shibukawa would pass through Shin-Maebashi Station around noon.
It stood amidst fields, its signal buffeted by the wind—a desolate rural station.

IV Koide Pine Grove

Koide Pine Grove is located in the northern part of Maebashi, at the distant foothills of Mount Akagi.
Since my boyhood, when I disliked school and favored the woods, I would always go alone to lose myself in meditation there—but now that grove had been entirely felled, oaks, beeches, and Japanese white birches pitilessly toppled beneath broad daylight.
A new road was laid there, straight as if leading to the banks of the Tone River, yet I did not know its distant course.

V Hagitei

Hagitei; it is also called Hagi-tei.
Until recent years, it stood before Maebashi Park.
Once a pavilion with autumn grasses overgrown, eaves tilting, and floors of classical elegance—now where has it gone? Not even a trace remains.

VI Maebashi Middle School

Built upon the banks of the Tone River, from its classroom windows one should behold the distant plume of Mount Asama.
In days of old, summer grasses flourished in the schoolyard, and four-leaf clovers grew thick across every inch; now baseball practice raged fierce, the entire ground hardened white and gleamed beneath the blazing sun.
Do students such as I—lazy ones—still linger there now, or do they not?

Postscript

“Hagiwara Sakutarō! Through nostalgia from our boyhood days, I now think of you as an older brother.” When speaking with him, I always perceived a quiet, light melancholy—the essence of goodness found in outstanding people. “I truly adore that eccentric nobility.” It was exceedingly rare for us to converse like boxers across a table. But speak he did!

Rage—the desolate rage of decadence would flash through moments of recklessness. Days when no cheerfulness appeared anywhere, when nothing showed even a hint of triumph; days so unbearable they felt pathological. On clear days—those exhilarating days when his nerves ran high like racing through a pine grove—he laughed so uproariously it seemed even the worms in his gut convulsed; I felt it could not be contained. So vigorously did sprightly epigrams leap forth.

Yet, as a whole, Mr. Hagiwara’s figure dwells within heavy shadows.

In April, when I visited Mr. Hagiwara—who was renting a shabby second-floor room in a boardinghouse—and saw the manuscript of his new *Hometown Landscape Poetry Collection*, I was astonished to find much of it filled with that intense, patient rage characteristic of those who endure.
At that time during my walk with Mr. Hagiwara through Maebashi Park—where unfeeling cherry blossoms were blooming in riotous profusion—the embankment vicinity once celebrated in *Lark’s Nest*, and many other lyrical landscapes had become places that seemed to hurl inner malice at him.
Inner malice is none other than inner supplication.
“Friend! Conceal your life and reveal your soul!”
Victor Hugo’s very words lie hidden within them.

Mr. Hagiwara’s life in his hometown—even before this—seems to have been invaded, quite naturally from without to within, by absurdly conventional institutions and brazenly oppressive forces.
Rage against those!
That is to say, the hardships of life manifested as artistic rage indeed.

When I saw these unbearable works, I felt compelled to reject any approach to these poems that would label them as “artistic.” For this reason: all too much, the cries of life beyond art’s mood had come to dominate these works.

Readers who had seen into his essence through *Howling at the Moon* and *Blue Cat*—how astonished they will be by this collection. Through these poems, Mr. Hagiwara is known as a staunch misanthrope and a mystical poet. They know nothing of this eyes-clenched, teeth-gritting rage. They know nothing of this real-world anguish.

In recent days，Mr．Hagiwara showed an inwardly directed anguish unseen until now．
Besides living in the countryside，there seemed to be various unbearable deadlocks．
In particular，there seemed to be some sort of severe deadlock．
This poetry collection appeared to me a mere hint toward that．

In any case，within this collection lies a kind of painful record in which Mr．Hagiwara—who had no choice but to live in solitude—confessed the agony of living such a solitary existence．
For me to now attempt to speak of Mr．Hagiwara would have been premature．
However，those who attempt to speak of Mr．Hagiwara may open this collection and see how profoundly they may come to know his true essence．
Those who know Mr．Hagiwara as a man of life will likely feel a troubling affinity for him that surpasses their reverence for him as an artist．

It was an undeniable fact that through this collection, a transformation was now coming to be bestowed upon Mr. Hagiwara. By infusing this realistic undercurrent into yesterday’s aloof poetic style, Mr. Hagiwara’s artistic realm would attain greater profundity. When I encountered these poems, I might be struck by such a pleasant sense of joy—one that left absolutely nothing wanting. At the same time, I could not help but be struck by intense emotion toward Mr. Hagiwara, who had been patiently enduring hardships in a life as bitter as wormwood wine. That I wished to offer my daily joys and nostalgia ever higher, shaping them into this postscript, was in no way different from the sentiments of many readers in this world.

Early autumn, 13th year of Taishō (1924)

Hagiwara Kyōjirō