The poetry of a nation is always the best revealer of its genuine life: the range of its spiritual as well as of its intellectual outlook. This is the case even where poetry is imitative, for imitation only pertains to the form of poetry, and not to its essence. Vergil copied the metre and borrowed the phraseology of Homer, but is never Homeric. In one sense, all national poetry is original, even though it be shackled by rules of traditional prosody, and has adopted the system of rhyme devised by writers in another language, whose words seem naturally to bourgeon into assonant terminations. But Japanese poetry is original in every sense of the term. Imitative as the Japanese are, and borrowers from other nations in every department of plastic, fictile, and pictorial art, as well as in religion, politics, and manufactures, the poetry of Japan is a true-born flower of the soil, unique in its mechanical structure, spontaneous and unaffected in its sentiment and subject. CLASSICAL POETRY OF JAPAN: Contents Introduction Ballads- The Fisher-Boy Urashima On Seeing a Dead Body The Maiden of Unahi The Grave of the Maiden of Unahi The Maiden of Katsushika The Beggar's Complaint A Soldier's Regrets on Leaving Home Love Songs- On Beholding the Mountain Love is Pain Hitomaro to His Mistress No Tidings Homeward The Maiden and the Dog Love is All Husband and Wife He Comes Not He and She The Pearls A Damsel Crossing a Bridge Secret Love The Omen A Maiden's Lament Rain and Snow Mount Mikash Evening Elegies- On the Death of the Mikado Tenji On the Death of the Poet's Mistress Elegy on the Poet's Wife On the Death of Prince Hinami On the Death of the Nun Riguwan On the Poet's Son, Furubi Short Stanza on the Same Occasion Miscellaneous Poems- View from Mount Kago The Mikado's Bow Spring and Autumn Spring Recollections of My Children The Brook of Hatsuse Lines to a Friend A Very Ancient Ode The Bridge to Heaven Ode to the Cuckoo The Ascent of Mount Tsukuba Couplet Short Stanzas"