LITMIR.BIZ

      Book The Third

       Table of Contents

      In which calm home of happy life and love

      Ligged our Lord Buddha, knowing not of woe,

      Nor want, nor pain, nor plague, nor age, nor death,

      Save as when sleepers roam dim seas in dreams,

      And land awearied on the shores of day,

      Bringing strange merchandise from that black voyage.

      Thus ofttimes when he lay with gentle head

      Lulled on the dark breasts of Yasodhara,

      Her fond hands fanning slow his sleeping lids,

      He would start up and cry, "My world! Oh, world!

      I hear! I know! I come!" And she would ask,

      "What ails my Lord?" with large eyes terrorstruck;

      For at such times the pity in his look

      Was awful, and his visage like a god's.

      Then would he smile again to stay her tears,

      And bid the vinas sound; but once they set

      A stringed gourd on the sill, there where the wind

      Could linger o'er its notes and play at will—

      Wild music makes the wind on silver strings—

      And those who lay around heard only that;

      But Prince Siddartha heard the Devas play,

      And to his ears they sang such words as these:—

      We are the voices of the wandering wind,

      Which moan for rest and rest can never find;

      Lo! as the wind is so is mortal life,

      A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.

      Wherefore and whence we are ye cannot know,

      Nor where life springs nor whither life doth go;

      We are as ye are, ghosts from the inane,

      What pleasure have we of our changeful pain?

      What pleasure hast thou of thy changeless bliss?

      Nay, if love lasted, there were joy in this;

      But life's way is the wind's way, all these things

      Are but brief voices breathed on shifting strings.

      O Maya's son! because we roam the earth

      Moan we upon these strings; we make no mirth,

      So many woes we see in many lands,

      So many streaming eyes and wringing hands.

      Yet mock we while we wail, for, could they know,

      This life they cling to is but empty show;

      'Twere all as well to bid a cloud to stand,

      Or hold a running river with the hand.

      But thou that art to save, thine hour is nigh!

      The sad world waileth in its misery,

      The blind world stumbleth on its round of pain;

      Rise, Maya's child! wake! slumber not again!

      We are the voices of the wandering wind

      Wander thou, too, O Prince, thy rest to find;

      Leave love for love of lovers, for woe's sake

      Quit state for sorrow, and deliverance make.

      So sigh we, passing o'er the silver strings,

      To thee who know'st not yet of earthly things;

      So say we; mocking, as we pass away,

      These lovely shadows wherewith thou dost play.

      Thereafter it befell he sate at eve

      Amid his beauteous Court, holding the hand

      Of sweet Yasodhara, and some maid told—

      With breaks of music when her rich voice dropped—

      An ancient tale to speed the hour of dusk,

      Of love, and of a magic horse, and lands

      Wonderful, distant, where pale peoples dwelled

      And where the sun at night sank into seas.

      Then spake he, sighing, "Chitra brings me back.

      The wind's song in the strings with that fair tale.

      Give her, Yasodhara, thy pearl for thanks.

      But thou, my pearl! is there so wide a world?

      Is there a land which sees the great sun roll

      Into the waves, and are there hearts like ours,

      Countless, unknown, not happy—it may be—

      Whom we might succour if we knew of them?

      Ofttimes I marvel, as the Lord of day

      Treads from the east his kingly road of gold,

      Who first on the world's edge hath hailed his beam,

      The children of the morning; oftentimes,

      Even in thine arms and on thy breasts, bright wife,

      Sore have I panted, at the sun's decline,

      To pass with him into that crimson west

      And see the peoples of the evening.

      There must be many we should love—how else?

      Now have I in this hour an ache, at last,

      Thy soft lips cannot kiss away: oh, girl!

      O Chitra! you that know of fairyland!

      Where tether they that swift steed of the tale?

      My palace for one day upon his back,

      To ride and ride and see the spread of the earth!

      Nay, if I had yon callow vulture's plumes—

      The carrion heir of wider realms than mine—

      How would I stretch for topmost Himalay,

      Light where the rose-gleam lingers on those snows,

      And strain my gaze with searching what is round!

      Why have I never seen and never sought?

      Tell me what lies beyond our brazen gates."

      Then one replied, "The city first, fair Prince!

      The temples, and the gardens, and the groves,

      And then the fields, and afterwards fresh fields,

      With nullahs, maidans, jungle, koss on koss;

      And next King Bimbasara's realm, and then

      The vast flat world, with crores on crores of folk."

      "Good," said Siddartha, "let the word be sent

      That Channa yoke my chariot—at noon

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