There is an even more Lilliputian form of verse than the _tanka_, called the _hokku_, which contains only seventeen syllables, often with little or no rhyme. An example of this form given by Lafcadio Hearn is known as "Vagabondage," and is a good example of much in little: "Heavily falls the rain on the hat that I stole from the scarecrow." Two others of quite a different trend are particularly exquisite: "What I saw as a fallen blossom returning to the branch--lo! it was a butterfly." "So lovely in its cry--What were the cuckoo if it laughed?"
The Japanese believe that if the beauty suggested in the five lines of a _tanka_ verse cannot be fully appreciated by the reader, there is something hopelessly deficient in that reader. They do not believe in "smothering the soul with many words."
Perhaps what strikes one most in connection with the classic verses is the dates at which they were written, for many that have come down to us were composed a thousand years ago. Indeed, Japanese poetry is older than Japanese history, and tradition says that there were many versifiers even in the days of the mythological Emperor, Jimmu Tenno. At any rate, Japan had a literature of its own long before the Northmen found America!
In the old days only nobles, Court officials and church dignitaries wrote poetry. The lower classes were not supposed to know anything about the art. Love and "picture" poems were popular, and it is wonderful what perfect thumb-nail sketches were composed. It has been said that "the predominating feature, the under-current that runs through them all, is a touch of pathos. ... It shows out in the cherry blossoms which are doomed to fall, the dewdrops scattered by the wind, the mournful cry of the wild deer on the mountain, the dying crimson of the fallen maple leaves, the weird sadness of the cuckoo singing in the moonlight, and the loneliness of the recluse in the wilds.
"The souls of children are often pictured as playing in a celestial garden with the same flowers and butterflies they used to play with while on earth. It is just this subtle element of the childlike disposition that has helped to discover the secrets of flowers and birds and trees, has enabled them to catch their timorous fleeting shadows and to hold them, as if by magic, in a picture, on a vase, or in a delicate and wistful poem."