With ghostly characters should dance

Beside each door, or flit,

Thin paper spirits, to and fro

And mow the wind, when it

[Pg 16]

Demanded of them reverence

And passed with twirl or twit.

What music, too, of samisen

And koto I should hear!

Tinkle on weirder tinkle thro

The strangely wistful ear

What shadows on the shoji-door

Of my dim soul should veer

All night in sleep, and haunt the light

Of many a coming year!

IV

Or were I in Japan today,

From Ujina I'd sail

For mountain-isled Migajima

Upon the distance, frail

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