in Subara; I see all that they speak of on the shore. An empty sky, with music, a rain of flowers, strange fragrance on every side. All these are no common things, nor is this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale its colour, I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see that it is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make it a treasure in my house, to show to the aged. Tennin. That cloak belongs to some one on this side. What are you proposing to do with it? Priest. This? this is a cloak picked up, I am taking it home, I tell you. Tennin. That is a feather-mantle not fit for a mortal to bear, Not easily taken or given. I ask you to leave it where you found it. Priest. How? is the owner of this cloak a tennin? So be it. In this downcast age I should keep it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the country, a thing respected. Then I should not return it. Tennin. Pitiful! There is no flying without the cloak of feathers, no return through the æther. I pray you return me the mantle. words, I, Hakuryo, You think, because Priest. Just from hearing these high have gathered more and yet more force. I was too stupid to recognise it, that I shall be unable to take and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall give it back for merely being told to stand and withdraw? Tennin. A tennin without her robe, A bird without wings, How shall she climb the air? Priest. And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in? Tennin. I am caught, I struggle, how shall I . . . Priest. To get back the robe. ... Chorus. Her coronet* jewelled as with the dew of tears, even the flowers that decorated her hair drooping and fading, the whole chain of weaknesses † of the dying tennin can be seen actually before the eyes. Sorrow! * Vide examples of state head-dress of kingfisher feathers, in the South Kensington Museum. The chain of weaknesses, or the five ills, discases of the tennin: (1) The Tennin. I look into the flat of heaven, peering; the cloud road perplexes itself; we are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the knowledge of the road. Strange! a strange sorrow! Chorus. Enviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds that fade along the sky that was our accustomed dwelling! Hearing the sky-bird, accustomed and well accustomed, hearing the voices grow fewer, the wild geese fewer and fewer, along the highways of air, how deep her longing to return! Plover and seagull are on the waves in the offing. Do they go? or do they return? She reaches out for the very blowing of the spring wind against heaven. Priest (to the Tennin). What do you say? Now that I can see you in your sorrow, gracious, of heaven, I bend and would return you your mantle. Tennin. It is clearer. No, give it this side. Priest. First tell me your nature, who are you? Tennin! Give payment with the dance of the tennin, and I will return you your mantle. Tennin. Readily and gladly, and then I return into heaven. You shall have what pleasure you will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be new among men, and to be memorial dancing. Learn then this dance that can turn the palace of the moon. No, come here to learn it. For the sorrows of the world I will leave this new dancing with you for sorrowful people. But give me my mantle, it is needful as a part of the measure. Priest. Not yet, for, if you should get it, how do I know you'll not be off to your palace without even beginning your dance, not even a measure? Tennin. Doubt is of mortals; with us there is no deceit. Priest. I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle. Chorus. The young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle; watch how she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment. Priest. The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind. Tennin. The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain. Priest. All three are doing one step. Chorus. It seems that she dances. Thus was the dance of pleasure, hanakadzusa withers; (2) the hagoromo is stained; (3) sweat comes from the body; (4) both eyes wink frequently; (5) she feels very weary of her palace of heaven. Suruga, dancing, brought to the sacred east. They being of old our friends. Upon ten sides their sky is without limit, They have named it, on this account, the enduring. Tennin. The jewelled axe takes up the eternal renewing, the palace of the moon-god is being renewed with the jewelled axe, and this is always recurring. Chorus (commenting on the dance). The white koromo, the black koromo, Three, five into fifteen, The figure that the tennin is dividing. There are heavenly nymphs, Amaotome,* One for each night of the month, And each with her deed assigned. Tennin. I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many. This is the dividing of my body that is fruit of the moon's tree, Katsuma.† This is one part of our dance that I leave to you here in your world. Chorus. The spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's flower will blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery head-ornament is putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not sky is here, but the beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderful wind. O blow, shut the accustomed path of the clouds. O you in the form of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo puts on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before the snow upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are but few ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There is naught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the gods within and without, ‡ beyond and beneath the stars, and the moon unclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun! This alone is between, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun's field. Tennin. The plumage of heaven drops neither feather nor flame to its own diminution. Chorus. Nor is this rock of earth over-much worn by the brushing of that feather-mantle, the feathery skirt of the stars-rarely! how rarely! There is a magic song from * Cf. 'Paradiso,' xxiii, 25. Quale nei plenilunii sereni Trivia ride tra le ninfe eterne.' † A tree something like the laurel. Within and without,' gei, gu, two parts of the temple. the east, the voices of many and many, and flute and shé, filling the space beyond the cloud's edge, seven-stringed! Dance! filling and filling. The red sun blots on the sky the line of the colour-drenched mountains. The flowers rain in a gust; it is no racking storm that comes over this green moor, which is afloat, as it would seem, in these waves. Wonderful is the sleeve of the white cloud whirling such snow here. Tennin. Plain of life, field of the sun, true foundation, great power! Chorus. Hence and for ever this dancing shall be called 'A revel in the East.' Many are the robes thou hast, now of the sky's colour itself, and now a green garment. Semi-Chorus. And now the robe of mist, presaging spring, a colour-smell as this wonderful maiden's skirt-left, right, left! The rustling of flowers, the putting-on of the feathery sleeve; they bend in air with the dancing. Semi-Chorus. Many are the joys in the east. She who is the colour-person of the moon takes her middle-night in the sky. She marks her three fives with this dancing, as a shadow of all fulfilments. The circled vows are at full. Give the seven jewels of rain and all of the treasure, you who go from us. After a little time, only a little time, can the mantle be upon the wind that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashilaka the mountain, though the clouds lie in its heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji is gone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out little by little. It melts into the upper mist. In this way she [the Tennin] is lost to sight. Art. 9.-ORGANISED LABOUR AND THE WAR. WE are indebted to the frankness and the singular naïveté of German publicists, diplomatists, military men, for the German forecast of the dangers, external and internal, that were to bring about the downfall of our Empire, should we ever commit the tragical folly of engaging in a European war. Our army, they have told us, in face of the invincible legions that would be arrayed against it, was negligible; our fleet was to be first of all dismayed and enfeebled by subtle and fearless attack, beneath and above the water, and then, reduced to something like an equality, to be destroyed in a great decisive battle. As to the danger within our frontiers, the subject races of India would rise en masse against our hated rule; our oversea Dominions would celebrate the hour of danger for the mother-country by promptly cutting the painter and setting up as independent nations; in Ireland since England's danger was notoriously Ireland's opportunity-the balance must inevitably swing down to Civil War; and finally, the menace of industrial unrest, growing like a thundercloud, would certainly break out in bloody revolution. How far these clear and confident prophecies have been fulfilled is common knowledge; but the attitude and action of organised Labour, its unanimity and patriotism in the hour of crisis, deserve fuller recognition than has as yet been accorded to them. Fully to understand the action of Labour upon and since the outbreak of war, it is necessary to survey the ante-war conditions. These were serious enough to serve, at least in the eyes of an alien enemy, as a portent of revolution. Several extensive strikes were not only in existence but were spreading; more were threatened; the attitude of organised Labour throughout the country may fairly be described as sullen and menacing. But the most serious menace of all was to be found precisely among those bodies of Labour whose hearty and unanimous co-operation was essential to the Government and the Fighting Services in the early and most hazardous stages of the war. Had the fleet been hung up for coal and supplies, had the transport of troops |