JAPANESE WAR SONG.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 31 January 1912, Page 6

JAPANESE WAR SONG.

Thers is nothing more stirring in the whole world 'than the songs of warriors going into battle. This is true of the "Marseillaise" and "The Men of Harlech,' "The British Grenadiers," "Scots Wha Hae," and other war songs. It is also, true of the War Song of the Japanese sailors. Recently the of the Japanese fleet were returning from Cabarita (says the Sydney Morning Herald), when some of them started to sing "The Man^o'-War-march." Th^ air sounded to the others like a call to arms. In the midst of talking to young ladies the officers sprang to their feet, and e with fire in their, eyes joined enthusiastically in the refrain. Then the band took it up. ■It was the song they had sung on the eve of Tsushima* It arose and fell with rythmic cadenzas like a wind playing: on an Aeolian harp* then worked to a I culmination as the 200 lusty-lunged sailors paid tribute to the Mikado and the glory of Nippon. Lieutenant S. Kikuno ;> of the Soya, suplied the following interpretation: They must depend upon the floating castle either for attack or for defence. The castle on the Water shall protect theni all around, and attack the invader of their land. Smoke coming from her funnel files like a dragon, resplendent on the sea; sound of firing rumbles like thunder. That is her service to show the power of the Emperor and the glory of the country beyond ten thousand miles over the sea.