The Greatest Poems of Edwin Arnold (Illustrated Edition) - Edwin Arnold

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die,

      And then, 't is taught, begin anew and live

      Somewhere, somehow,—who knows?—and so again

      The pangs, the parting, and the lighted pile—

      Such is man's round."

      But lo! Siddartha turned

      Eyes gleaming with divine tears to the sky,

      Eyes lit with heavenly pity to the earth;

      From sky to earth he looked, from earth to sky,

      As if his spirit sought in lonely flight

      Some far-off vision, linking this and that,

      Lost, past, but searchable, but seen, but known.

      Then cried he, while his lifted countenance

      Glowed with the burning passion of a love

      Unspeakable, the ardour of a hope

      Boundless, insatiate: "Oh! suffering world,

      Oh! known and unknown of my common flesh,

      Caught in this common net of death and woe,

      And life which binds to both! I see, I feel

      The vastness of the agony of earth,

      The vainness of its joys, the mockery

      Of all its best, the anguish of its worst;

      Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age,

      And love in loss, and life in hateful death,

      And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke

      Men to their wheel again to whirl the round

      Of false delights and woes that are not false.

      Me too this lure hath cheated, so it seemed

      Lovely to live, and life a sunlit stream

      For ever flowing in a changeless peace;

      Whereas the foolish ripple of the flood

      Dances so lightly down by bloom and lawn

      Only to pour its crystal quicklier

      Into the foul salt sea. The veil is rent

      Which blinded me! I am as all these men

      Who cry upon their gods and are not heard

      Or are not heeded—yet there must be aid!

      For them and me and all there must be help!

      Perchance the gods have need of help themselves

      Being so feeble that when sad lips cry

      They cannot save! I would not let one cry

      Whom I could save! How can it be that Brahm

      Would make a world and keep it miserable,

      Since, if all-powerful, he leaves it so,

      He is not good, and if not powerful,

      He is not God?—Channa! lead home again!

      It is enough I mine eyes have seen enough!"

      Which when the King heard, at the gates he set

      A triple guard, and bade no man should pass

      By day or night, issuing or entering in,

      Until the days were numbered of that dream.

      Book The Fourth

       Table of Contents

      But when the days were numbered, then befell

      The parting of our Lord—which was to be—

      Whereby came wailing in the Golden Home,

      Woe to the King and sorrow o'er the land,

      But for all flesh deliverance, and that Law

      Which whoso hears, the same shall make him free.

      Softly the Indian night sinks on the plains

      At full moon in the month of Chaitra Shud,

      When mangoes redden and the asoka buds

      Sweeten the breeze, and Rama's birthday comes,

      And all the fields are glad and all the towns.

      Softly that night fell over Vishramvan,

      Fragrant with blooms and jewelled thick with stars,

      And cool with mountain airs sighing adown

      From snow-flats on Himala high-outspread;

      For the moon swung above the eastern peaks,

      Climbing the spangled vault, and lighting clear

      Robini's ripples and the hills and plains,

      And all the sleeping land, and near at hand

      Silvering those roof-tops of the pleasure-house,

      Where nothing stirred nor sign of watching was,

      Save at the outer gates, whose warders cried

      Mudra, the watchword, and the countersign

      Angana, and the watch-drums beat a round;

      Whereat the earth lay still, except for call

      Of prowling jackals, and the ceaseless trill

      Of crickets on the garden grounds.

      Within—

      Where the moon glittered through the laceworked stone,

      Lighting the walls of pearl-shell and the floors

      Paved with veined marble—softly fell her beams

      On such rare company of Indian girls,

      It seemed some chamber sweet in Paradise

      Where Devis rested. All the chosen ones

      Of Prince Siddartha's pleasure-home were there,

      The brightest and most faithful of the Court,

      Each form so lovely in the peace of sleep,

      That you had said "This is the pearl of all!"

      Save that beside her or beyond her lay

      Fairer and fairer, till the pleasured gaze

      Roamed o'er that feast of beauty as it roams

      From gem to gem in some great goldsmith-work,

      Caught by each colour till the next is seen.

      With careless grace they lay, their soft brown limbs

      Part hidden, part revealed; their glossy hair

      Bound back with gold or flowers, or flowing loose

      In black waves down the shapely nape and neck.

      Lulled into pleasant dreams by happy toils,

      They slept, no wearier than jewelled birds

      Which sing and love all day, then under wing

      Fold head till morn bids sing and love again.

      Lamps of chased silver swinging from the roof

      In silver chains, and fed with perfumed oils,

      Made with the moonbeams tender lights and shades,

      Whereby were seen the perfect lines of grace,

      The bosom's placid heave, the soft stained palms

      Drooping

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