19 JANUARY 1924, Page 15

POETRY.

EARLY JAPANESE FOLK-SONG.

(8th century A.D. ?)

A MAN in the village told me . .

Said, " I saw your husband riding, Your lovely lord. On the hillside Down through the red leaves his night-black Horse was plunging to the river, The whirlpool, the seven races.

When I left, it went hard with him

There in the water," the man said.

Translated by ARTHUR WALEY,