The verse is not like Japanese verse, indeed, but it comes nearer to it than any other European verse does.

Of course even in Finnish verse, accents mean a great deal, and accent means nothing at all in Japanese verse.

But I imagine something very much like Finnish verse might be written in Japanese, provided that in reciting it a slight stress is thrown on certain syllables.

Of course you know something about Longfellow's "Hiawatha"-- such lines as these: And the evening sun descending Set the clouds on fire with redness, Burned the broad sky like a prairie, Left upon the level water One long track and trail of splendour, Down whose stream, as down a river, Westward, westward Hiawatha Sailed into the fiery sunset, Sailed into the purple vapours, Sailed into the dusk of evening.
You will observe this is verse of eight syllables with four trochees to a line.

Now it is perhaps as near to Finnish verse as English verse can be made.