LITMIR.BIZ

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she, their gaunt dam, licked full motherly

      The clamorous twins, yielding her flank to them

      With moaning throat, and love stronger than want,

      Softening the first of that wild cry wherewith

      She laid her famished muzzle to the sand

      And roared a savage thunder-peal of woe.

      Seeing which bitter strait, and heeding nought

      Save the immense compassion of a Buddh,

      Our Lord bethought, "There is no other way

      To help this murdress of the woods but one.

      By sunset these will die, having no meat:

      There is no living heart will pity her,

      Bloody with ravin, lean for lack of blood.

      Lo! if I feed her, who shall lose but I,

      And how can love lose doing of its kind

      Even to the uttermost?" So saying, Buddh

      Silently laid aside sandals and staff,

      His sacred thread, turban, and cloth, and came

      Forth from behind the milk-bush on the sand,

      Saying, "Ho! mother, here is meat for thee!"

      Whereat the perishing beast yelped hoarse and shrill,

      Sprang from her cubs, and, hurling to the earth

      That willing victim, had her feast of him

      With all the crooked daggers of her claws

      Rending his flesh, and all her yellow fangs

      Bathed in his blood: the great cat's burning breath

      Mixed with the last sigh of such fearless love.

      Thus large the Master's heart was long ago,

      Not only now, when with his gracious ruth

      He bade cease cruel worship of the gods.

      And much King Bimbasara prayed our Lord—

      Learning his royal birth and holy search—

      To tarry in that city, saying oft

      "Thy princely state may not abide such fasts;

      Thy hands were made for sceptres, not for alms.

      Sojourn with me, who have no son to rule,

      And teach my kingdom wisdom, till I die,

      Lodged in my palace with a beauteous bride."

      But ever spake Siddartha, of set mind

      "These things I had, most noble King, and left,

      Seeking the Truth; which still I seek, and shall;

      Not to be stayed though Sakra's palace ope'd

      Its doors of pearl and Devis wooed me in.

      I go to build the Kingdom of the Law, journeying to

      Gaya and the forest shades,

      Where, as I think, the light will come to me;

      For nowise here among the Rishis comes

      That light, nor from the Shasters, nor from fasts

      Borne till the body faints, starved by the soul.

      Yet there is light to reach and truth to win;

      And surely, O true Friend, if I attain

      I will return and quit thy love."

      Thereat

      Thrice round the Prince King Bimbasara paced,

      Reverently bending to the Master's feet,

      And bade him speed. So passed our Lord away

      Towards Uravilva, not yet comforted,

      And wan of face, and weak with six years' quest.

      But they upon the hill and in the grove—

      Alara, Udra, and the ascetics five—

      Had stayed him, saying all was written clear

      In holy Shasters, and that none might win

      Higher than Sruti and than Smriti—nay,

      Not the chief saints!—for how should mortal man

      Be wiser than the Jnana-Kand, which tells

      How Brahm is bodiless and actionless,

      Passionless, calm, unqualified, unchanged,

      Pure life, pure thought, pure joy? Or how should man

      Its better than the Karmma-Kand, which shows

      How he may strip passion and action off,

      Break from the bond of self, and so, unsphered,

      Be God, and melt into the vast divine,

      Flying from false to true, from wars of sense

      To peace eternal, where the silence lives?

      But the prince heard them, not yet comforted.

      Book The Sixth

       Table of Contents

      Thou who wouldst see where dawned the light at last,

      North-westwards from the "Thousand Gardens" go

      By Gunga's valley till thy steps be set

      On the green hills where those twin streamlets spring

      Nilajan and Mohana; follow them,

      Winding beneath broad-leaved mahua-trees,

      'Mid thickets of the sansar and the bir,

      Till on the plain the shining sisters meet

      In Phalgu's bed, flowing by rocky banks

      To Gaya and the red Barabar hills.

      Hard by that river spreads a thorny waste,

      Uruwelaya named in ancient days,

      With sandhills broken; on its verge a wood

      Waves sea-green plumes and tassels 'thwart the sky,

      With undergrowth wherethrough a still flood steals,

      Dappled with lotus-blossoms, blue and white,

      And peopled with quick fish and tortoises.

      Near it the village of Senani reared

      Its roofs of grass, nestled amid the palms,

      Peaceful with simple folk and pastoral toils.

      There in the sylvan solitudes once more

      Lord Buddha lived, musing the woes of men,

      The ways of fate, the doctrines of the books,

      The lessons of the creatures of the brake,

      The secrets of the silence whence all come,

      The secrets of the gloom whereto all go,

      The life which lies between, like that arch flung

      From cloud to cloud across the sky, which hath

      Mists for its masonry and vapoury piers,

      Melting to void again which was so fair

      With sapphire hues, garnet, and chrysoprase.

      Moon after moon our Lord sate in

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