Nippon
Last night, I dreamed of Nippon....
I saw a cloud of white
Drifting before the sunset
On seas of opal light.
Beyond the wide Pacific
I saw its mounded snow
Miraculously changing
In that deep evening glow,
To rosy rifts and hillocks,
To orchards that I knew,
To snows of peach and cherry,
And feathers of bamboo.
I saw, on twisted bridges,
In blue and crimson gleams,
The lanterns of the fishers,
Along the brook of dreams.
I saw the wreaths of incense
Like little ghosts arise,
From temples under Fuji,
From Fuji to the skies.
I saw that fairy mountain....
I watched it form and fade.
No doubt the gods were singing,
When Nippon isle was made.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Beautiful Mount Fuji
Beautiful Mount Fuji,
How are you?
Oh glory wonderland!
I am a passerby to say hello to you.
All the nations have heard about you,
From the morning frost to a picture at dawn;
Oh glory, glory, glory wonderland! !
Mount Fuji is your name.
Beautiful Mount Fuji how are you?
You already know my name since,
I am your frequent visitor;
All the nations have heard about you as well,
Like the precious stones on our necks.
I only need to climb you once to gain wisdom,
Beautiful Mount Fuji how are you?
I have hopes and dreams like all the visitors around;
Oh glory wonderland.
With Fujiyama as sight to play a role,
Come in the night and see her wonders;
Beautiful Mount Fuji,
I do respect you a lot.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
There Was a Cherry-Tree
There was a cherry-tree. Its bloomy snows
Cool even now the fevered sight that knows
No more its airy visions of pure joy --
As when you were a boy.
There was a cherry-tree. The Bluejay sat
His blue against its white -- O blue as jet
He seemed there then!-- But now -- Whoever knew
He was so pale a blue!
There was a cherry-tree -- our child-eyes saw
The miracle:-- Its pure white snows did thaw
Into a crimson fruitage, far too sweet
But for a boy to eat.
There was a cherry-tree, give thanks and joy!--
There was a bloom of snow -- There was a boy --
There was a bluejay of the realest blue --
And fruit for both of you.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Samurai-The Grit
the blade that settle in the land of the rising sun,
a course of wind that blew to the orient seas,
holding on to stand away from the foreign land,
its beauty allure, the cherry blossom's aura, to
the might of the ancient samurai, steadfastly
awake the vigor of the mystic Fuji mountain
oh, a throne that you live forever, a crystal clear
of snow you give to live, stand as you hold, the
stuff you made, the blade that shield, to gun
powder, you take
ambient triumph, you make, in the century you
take, keep me know that you are a nation of
people whose shintoism belief as it flows, where
elements of nature is balance
live as you go, to the land where the rising sun
stand, where the horizon of light passes the night,
in the breeze of the pacific ocean, lay a nation
that is free
as you go, let our dream brings......its light....that
beyond that rays....our race live forever
poem by Antonio Liao
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Realms Of Gold
(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger
under the palms of Southern California.)
Under the palms of San Diego
Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease,
And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons
Drop from their hands in the sunset seas,
And an incense, out of the old brown missions,
Blows through the orange trees;
I wished that a poet who died in Europe
Had found his way to this rose-red West;
That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific
And cradled his head on its healing breast,
And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk,
New poems, perhaps his best.
I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates
At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow,
In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush
And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow,
Or watching the lights of the City of Angels
Glitter like stars below.
He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards,
And breathe at ease in that dry bright air;
And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters
Of brown adobe would sing to him there;
And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets
Of apple and olive and pear.
And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight,
Under that palm with the lion's mane,
Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings,
And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain;
And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him
Their mystical songs again.
Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom;
The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue;
The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped;
And better than anything dreamed came true;
For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow
Passed, with the eyes I knew;
A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains
That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky,
A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow,
A dreaming shadow that drifted by;
But I heard him whisper the strange dark music
That found it so 'rich to die.'
And the murmuring palms of San Diego
Shook with stars as he passed beneath.
The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards,
The night, and its roses, were all one breath,
Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward,
A song that had out-soared death.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Pink cherry blossoms
Tokyo’s springtime flowering
A Nippon delight
haiku by Stanley Cooper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Jingo and the Minstrel
AN ARGUMENT FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE AND GOODWILL WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
Glossary for the uninstructed and the hasty: Jimmu Tenno, ancestor of all the Japanese Emperors; Nikko, Japan's loveliest shrine; Iyeyasu, her greatest statesman; Bushido, her code of knighthood; The Forty-seven Ronins, her classic heroes; Nogi, her latest hero; Fuji, her most beautiful mountain.
"Now do you know of Avalon
That sailors call Japan?
She holds as rare a chivalry
As ever bled for man.
King Arthur sleeps at Nikko hill
Where Iyeyasu lies,
And there the broad Pendragon flag
In deathless splendor flies."
"Nay, minstrel, but the great ships come
From out the sunset sea.
We cannot greet the souls they bring
With welcome high and free.
How can the Nippon nondescripts
That weird and dreadful band
Be aught but what we find them here:—
The blasters of the land?"
"First race, first men from anywhere
To face you, eye to eye.
For that do you curse Avalon
And raise a hue and cry?
These toilers cannot kiss your hand,
Or fawn with hearts bowed down:
Be glad for them, and Avalon,
And Arthur's ghostly crown.
"No doubt your guests, with sage debate
In grave things gentlemen
Will let your trade and farms alone
And turn them back again.
But why should brawling braggarts rise
With hasty words of shame
To drive them back like dogs and swine
Who in due honor came?"
"We cannot give them honor, sir.
We give them scorn for scorn.
And Rumor steals around the world
All white-skinned men to warn
Against this sleek silk-merchant here
And viler coolie-man
And wrath within the courts of war
Brews on against Japan!"
"Must Avalon, with hope forlorn,
Her back against the wall,
Have lived her brilliant life in vain
While ruder tribes take all?
Must Arthur stand with Asian Celts,
A ghost with spear and crown,
Behind the great Pendragon flag
And be again cut down?
"Tho Europe's self shall move against
High Jimmu Tenno's throne
The Forty-seven Ronin Men
Will not be found alone.
For Percival and Bedivere
And Nogi side by side
Will stand,—with mourning Merlin there,
Tho all go down in pride.
"But has the world the envious dream—
Ah, such things cannot be,—
To tear their fairy-land like silk
And toss it in the sea?
Must venom rob the future day
The ultimate world-man
Of rare Bushido, code of codes,
The fair heart of Japan?
"Go, be the guest of Avalon.
Believe me, it lies there
Behind the mighty gray sea-wall
Where heathen bend in prayer:
Where peasants lift adoring eyes
To Fuji's crown of snow.
King Arthur's knights will be your hosts,
So cleanse your heart, and go.
"And you will find but gardens sweet
Prepared beyond the seas,
And you will find but gentlefolk
Beneath the cherry-trees.
So walk you worthy of your Christ
Tho church bells do not sound,
And weave the bands of brotherhood
On Jimmu Tenno's ground."
poem by Vachel Lindsay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Red House
On the wide fields the water gleams like snow,
And snow like water pale beneath pale sky,
When old and burdened the white clouds are stooped low.
Sudden as thought, or startled near bird's cry,
The whiteness of first light on hills of snow
New dropped from skiey hills of tumbling white
Streams from the ridge to where the long woods lie;
And tall ridge-trees lift their soft crowns of white
Above slim bodies all black or flecked with snow.
By the tossed foam of the not yet frozen brook
Black pigs go straggling over fields of snow;
The air is full of snow, and starling and rook
Are blacker amid the myriad streams of light.
Warm as old fire the Red House burns yet bright
Beneath the unmelting snows of pine and larch,
While February moves as slow, as slow
As Spring might never come, never come March.
Amid such snows, by generations haunted,
By echoes, memories and dreams enchanted,
Firm when dark winds through the night stamp and shout,
Brightest when time silvers the world all about,
That old house called _The Heart_ burns, burns, and still
Outbraves the mortal threat of the hanging hill.
poem by John Freeman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Drift Glow
Drift glow
Drift glow
As white as snow
Into the openness
Of bright sky heaven fresh
Mighty in its blue
Into going and renew
Drift glow
White as snow
I hear the birds singing
Outside - in a tree
Wonderful tones bringing
Up and down the scale free
Love songs for their nest
And hope to come and see
When with young it's blessed
And cared for compassionately
Drift glow
Drift glow
As white as snow
Into the openness
Of space and clear enmesh
Something to come here through
When tomorrow is up to do
Drift glow
White as snow
In with its many days singing
poem by Peter S. Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Drift Glow (from, MySpace)
Drift glow
Drift glow
As white as snow
Into the openness
Of bright sky heaven fresh
Mighty in its blue
Into going and renew
Drift glow
White as snow
I hear the birds singing
Outside - in a tree
Wonderful tones bringing
Up and down the scale free
Love songs for their nest
And hope to come and see
When with young it's blessed
And cared for compassionately
Drift glow
Drift glow
As white as snow
Into the openness
Of space and clear enmesh
Something to come here through
When tomorrow is up to do
Drift glow
White as snow
In with its many days singing
poem by Peter S. Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Old Japan
In old Japan, by creek and bay,
The blue plum-blossoms blow,
Where birds with sea-blue plumage gay
Through sea-blue branches go:
Dragons are coiling down below
Like dragons on a fan;
And pig-tailed sailors lurching slow
Through streets of old Japan.
There, in the dim blue death of day
Where white tea roses grow,
Petals and scents are strewn astray
Till night be sweet enow;
Then lovers wander whispering low
As lovers only can,
Where rosy paper lanterns glow
Through streets of old Japan.
From Wonderland to Yea-or-Nay
The junks with painted prow
Dream on the purple water-way
Nor ever meet a foe;
Though still, with stiff mustachio
And crooked ataghan,
Their pirates guard with pomp and show
The ships of old Japan.
How far beyond the dawning day
The glories ebb and flow,
Where still the wonder-children play,
The witches mop and mow;
How far, how far, no chart may show,
The heart of mortal man,
The light, the splendour, and the glow
That once were old Japan!
That land is very far away
We lost it long ago!
In old Japan the grass is grey,
The trees are white with snow;
The sea-blue bird became a crow,
The lizards leapt and ran,
No dragon mourned that overthrow,
The dream of old Japan.
In old Japan, at windows grey,
Where scents of opium flow,
Strange smiling faces, white as clay,
Nod idly to and fro;
There life and death may come and go,
With blessing or with ban,
And still no better gift bestow
Than this, in old Japan.
And now the wistful years delay
To wonder why and how
The blue fantastic twisted day,
When Emperor Hwang or Chow
Dreamed in the colour and the glow
That light the heart of man,
Could e’er such hours of flowers bestrow
Through streets of old Japan.
In old Japan they used to play
A game forgotten now;
They filled a nacre-coloured tray
With perfumes in a row,
Breathing of all the flowers that blow
Where dark-blue rivers ran,
Like those upon the plates, you know,
Through fields of old Japan;
Then with silver spatula
The mandarins would go
To test the scented dust and say,
With many a hum and ho,
What flower of all the flowers that grow
For joy of maid or man,
Conceived the scents that puzzled so
The brains of old Japan.
In old Japan, where poets pray
With white uplifted brow,
What mystic floating scents delay
Below the purple bough,
O’er plains no scythe of death may mow,
Nor power of reason scan?
What mandarin musicians know
The flower of old Japan?
There, in the dim blue death of day
Where white tea-roses grow,
Petals and scents are strewn astray
Till night be sweet enow,
Then lovers wander, whispering low
As lovers only can,
Where rosy paper lanterns glow
Through streets of old Japan.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Our Hero
"Flowers, only flowers -- bring me dainty posies,
Blossoms for forgetfulness," that was all he said;
So we sacked our gardens, violets and roses,
Lilies white and bluebells laid we on his bed.
Soft his pale hands touched them, tenderly caressing;
Soft into his tired eyes came a little light;
Such a wistful love-look, gentle as a blessing;
There amid the flowers waited he the night.
"I would have you raise me; I can see the West then:
I would see the sun set once before I go."
So he lay a-gazing, seemed to be at rest then,
Quiet as a spirit in the golden glow.
So he lay a-watching rosy castles crumbling,
Moats of blinding amber, bastions of flame,
Rugged rifts of opal, crimson turrets tumbling;
So he lay a-dreaming till the shadows came.
"Open wide the window; there's a lark a-singing;
There's a glad lark singing in the evening sky.
How it's wild with rapture, radiantly winging:
Oh it's good to hear that when one has to die.
I am horror-haunted from the hell they found me;
I am battle-broken, all I want is rest.
Ah! It's good to die so, blossoms all around me,
And a kind lark singing in the golden West.
"Flowers, song and sunshine, just one thing is wanting,
Just the happy laughter of a little child."
So we brought our dearest, Doris all-enchanting;
Tenderly he kissed her; radiant he smiled.
"In the golden peace-time you will tell the story
How for you and yours, sweet, bitter deaths were ours. . . .
God bless little children!" So he passed to glory,
So we left him sleeping, still amid the flow'rs.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lake Louise
Bluer than Helen's eyes she lies
Under the blue cloud-drifting skies;
A daughter fair of light and air
Dropped among warrior mountains there.
White glaciers kiss her feet so fleet—
Oh fugitive, too rare and sweet!
Will she not fling them off that cling,
And rise, a bluebird on the wing?
Will she not rise and stray away,
A blue gleam on the brow of day?
Look—still she stays, and bright, snow-white,
The glaciers guard her day and night!
poem by Harriet Monroe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Blue Gold Sky
Blue gold sky
Your fire is burning
Horizon questions why
Your evening is yearning
For a day that is soon gone
Into oblivion abyss
To carry the night on
In dreamy nocturnal kiss
All the blue gold is bound
Into your drifting clouds
Sunset of silver found
Among the streets and crowds
Love song of dusky distant
Where weaving dreams go
In to the nonexistent
Of ocean’s nightly glow
Blue gold sky
Yesterday is in your sight
When you come in sweet lullaby
In the falling off the eve light
Chariot of fire gold
Blue silver moon beyond
Nothing your dreams can hold
You are to stars whishes bond
poem by Peter S. Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Song: Tis Not the Beam
'Tis not the beam of her bright blue eye,
Nor the smile of her lip of rosy dye,
Nor the dark brown wreaths of her glossy hair,
Nor her changing cheek, so rich and rare.
Oh! these are the sweets of a fairy dream,
The changing hues of an April sky.
They fade like dew in the morning beam,
Or the passing zephyr's odour'd sigh.
'Tis a dearer spell that bids me kneel,
'Tis the heart to love, and the soul to feel:
'Tis the mind of light, and the spirit free,
And the bosom that heaves alone for me.
Oh! these are the sweets that kindly stay
From youth's gay morning to age's night;
When beauty's rainbow tints decay,
Love's torch still burns with a holy light.
Soon will the bloom of the fairest fade,
And love will droop in the cheerless shade,
Or if tears should fall on his wing of joy,
It will hasten the flight of the laughing boy.
But oh! the light of the constant soul
Nor time can darken nor sorrow dim;
Though woe may weep in life's mingled bowl,
Love still shall hover around its brim.
poem by Joseph Rodman Drake
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Evening Ebb
The ocean has not been so quiet for a long while; five nightherons
Fly shorelong voiceless in the hush of the air
Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings.
The sun has gone down, and the water has gone down
From the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises. The
ebb whispers.
Great cloud-shadows float in the opal water.
Through rifts in the screen of the world pale gold gleams, and the
evening
Star suddenly glides like a flying torch.
As if we had not been meant to see her; rehearsing behind
The screen of the world for another audience.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Golden Island: Arran From Ayr
DEEP set in distant seas it lies;
The morning vapors float and fall,
The noonday clouds above it rise,
Then drop as white as virgin's pall.
And sometimes, when that shroud uplifts,
The far green fields show strange and fair;
Mute waterfalls in sliver rifts
Sparkle adown the hillside bare.
But ah! mists gather, more and more;
And though the blue sky has no tears,
And the sea laughs with light all o'er,--
The lovely Island disappears.
O vanished Island of the blest!
O dream of all things pure and high!
Hid in deep seas, as faithful breast
Hides loves that have but seemed to die,--
Whether on seas dividing tossed,
Or led through fertile lands the while,
Better lose all things than have lost
The memory of the morning Isle!
For lo! when gloaming shadows glide,
And all is calm in earth and air,
Above the heaving of the tide
The lonely Island rises fair;
Its purple peaks shine, outlined grand
And clear, as noble lives nigh done;
While stretches bright from land to land
The broad sea-pathway to the sun.
He wraps it in his glory's blaze,
He stoops to kiss its forehead cold;
And, all transfigured by his rays,
It gleams--an Isle of molten gold.
The sun may set, the shades descend,
Earth sleep--and yet while sleeping smile;
But it will live unto life's end--
That vision of the Golden Isle.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Voice
From our low seat beside the fire
Where we have dozed and dreamed, and watched the glow
Or raked the ashes, stooping so
We scarcely saw the sun and rain
Through the small curtained window-pane,
Or looked much higher
Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire,
Tonight we heard a call,
A voice on the sharp air,
And felt a breath stirring our hair,
A flame within us. Something swift and tall
Swept in and out and that was all.
Was it a bright or a dark angel? Who can know?
It made no mark upon the snow;
But suddenly, in passing, snapped the chain,
Unbarred, flung wide the door
Which will not shut again:
And so we cannot sit here any more.
We must arise and go.
The world is cold without
And dark and hedged about
With mystery and enmity and doubt,
But we must go,
Though yet we do not know
Who called, or what marks we shall leave upon the snow.
poem by Charlotte Mary Mew
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Box
The brain inside the box, landscapes of maps,
where needless like a compass, stitch the way,
cleaver, but not as often wiser,
like grain of sand, no much important, at the blowing wind.
Hunt by nature, ice and dry, shaping our life
Survivor in this mud, where silence flies emerges.
The ancestor corps
Time and age, the gods we pray.
The primordial silence, now awake
Thunder staring, mountain boiling,
and the valley harvest, grain and maize,
at the cloud shadowing skies.
And the man called it paradise.
And so the city wall, arise
inside our mind.
Dwell in temples, manmade,
for gods to stay.
Just another dream, inside the box,
pouring tears, made for last.
Billion's years,
and then disappears.
Emptiness, is to be fill.
Of dreams made real
by the man's eyes, by the soul light.
The gift that god gave to us
the story of our life's
the faith and the fight
the empty box of life.
To be fill....
poem by Luca Menin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Burnt Ships
TO skies that were brighter
Turned he his prows;
To gods that were lighter
Made he his vows.
The snow-land's mountains
Sank in the deep;
Sunnier fountains
Lulled him to sleep.
He burns his vessels,
The smoke flung forth
On blue cloud-trestles
A bridge to the north.
From the sun-warmed lowland
Each night that betides,
To the huts of the snow-land
A horseman rides.
poem by Henrik Johan Ibsen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sweet Snow In Korea
December is Korea
lots of snow there
with your family
there is always a
reason for warmth
joy reigns, and
snow becomes
as sweet as Fuji apple
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!