Peace folds her in its deeps profound; Her shy glance lifts not from the ground; And through this garden's still retreat She moves with tripping silver feet Whose trancèd grace, where'er she strays, Turns all the days to holy days.
Come! let us softly steal away. For what can we, whose hearts are grey, Bring to her dreaming paradise? A chill shall mock her from our eyes; A cloud shall dim this radiant air: Come! for our world is otherwhere.
But O ye little winds that blow From golden islands long ago Lost to our searching in the deep Of dreams between the shores of sleep-- Ye shall her happy playmates be, Fluttering her robes invisibly.
[Illustration: HARUNOBU: YOUNG GIRL IN WIND.
Polychrome, from eight blocks. Size 11 × 8. Signed _Susuki Harunobu ga_. Gookin Collection.
The few available fragments of information about the life of Susuki Harunobu can be briefly stated. Born between 1725 and 1730, he lived in Yedo all his life in a house near the river. In 1764 he perfected a new and epoch-making treatment of colour-print technique, and died in 1770, not much more than forty years of age. We may, where so little is known, willingly follow Dr. Kurth in his ingenious tracing of a romantic link between Harunobu and the hamlet of Kasamori, whose pine-trees, red temple-torii, and beautiful tea-house waitress O-Sen haunt his work recurrently; but we must be content to regard this as at least half fancy. Harunobu's direct teacher was Shigenaga, and he was influenced early by Toyonobu; but it was to Sukenobu and Kiyomitsu that he turned for the inspiration of those characteristic figures which he created during the six great years of his real activity.
Harunobu's work before the year 1764 is relatively unimportant. It consists of prints of actors and legendary subjects, printed in two or three colours; a few of his _hoso-ye_ prints of this period have charming delicacy of line and colour, and at least one of his actor pillar-prints is a work of notable dignity; but upon the whole his work is not very individual. Any one of a dozen of Shigenaga's pupils might have done almost as well. Before 1764 these men were all his equals; after 1764 he took a step which few could keep pace with and which none could outstrip.