(After the Japanese military ballad, Rappa-no-hibiki.)
Easy in other times than this
Were Anjo's stream to cross;
But now, beneath the storm of shot,
Its waters seethe and toss.
In other time to pass that stream
Were sport for boys at play;
But every man through blood must wade
Who fords Anjo to-day.
The bugle sounds;--through flood and flame
Charges the line of steel;--
Above the crash of battle rings
The bugle's stern appeal.
Why has that bugle ceased to call?
Why does it call once more?
Why sounds the stirring signal now
More faintly than before?
What time the bugle ceased to sound,
The breast was smitten through;--
What time the blast rang faintly, blood
Gushed from the lips that blew.
Death-stricken, still the bugler stands!
He leans upon his gun,--
Once more to sound the bugle-call
Before his life be done.
What though the shattered body fall?
The spirit rushes free
Through Heaven and Earth to sound anew
That call to Victory!
Far, far beyond our shore, the spot
Now honored by his fall;--
But forty million brethren
Have heard that bugle-call.
Comrade!--beyond the peaks and seas
Your bugle sounds to-day
In forty million loyal hearts
A thousand miles away!
(2) Haori, a sort of upper dress, worn by men as well as women.
The linings are often of designs beautiful beyond praise.
(3) Chirimen is crape-silk, of which there are many qualities;
some very costly and durable.
(4) Soshi form one of the modern curses of Japan. They are mostly
ex-students who earn a living by hiring themselves out as rowdy
terrorists. Politicians employ them either against the soshi of
opponents, or as bullies in election time. Private persons
sometimes employ them as defenders. They have figured in most of
the election rows which have taken place of late years in Japan,
also in a number of assaults made on distinguished personages.
The causes which produced nihilism in Russia have several points
of resemblance with the causes which developed the modern soshi
class in Japan.