Iii

Clear shines the hill; the rice-fields round Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow, A blue canal, the lake’s blue bound, Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo! Touched with the sundown’s spirit and low, I see you turn, with flirted fan, Against the plum-tree’s bloomy snow-- I loved you once in old Japan!

Envoy

Dear, ’twas a dozen lives ago; But that I was a lucky man The Toyokuni here will show, I loved you once in old Japan.

William Ernest Henley.