LITMIR.BIZ

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      And made her black snakes writhe to hide their fangs.

      Then followed Ruparaga—Lust of days—

      That sensual Sin which out of greed for life

      Forgets to live; and next him Lust of Fame,

      Nobler Aruparaga, she whose spell

      Beguiles the wise, mother of daring deeds,

      Battles and toils. And haughty Mano came,

      The Fiend of Pride; and smooth Self-Righteousness.

      Uddhachcha; and—with many a hideous band

      Of vile and formless things, which crept and flapped

      Toad-like and bat-like—Ignorance, the Dam

      Of Fear and Wrong, Avidya, hideous hag,

      Whose footsteps left the midnight darker, while

      The rooted mountains shook, the wild winds howled,

      The broken clouds shed from their caverns streams

      Of levin-lighted rain; stars shot from heaven,

      The solid earth shuddered as if one laid

      Flame to her gaping wounds; the torn black air

      Was full of whistling wings, of screams and yells,

      Of evil faces peering, of vast fronts

      Terrible and majestic, Lords of Hell

      Who from a thousand Limbos led their troops

      To tempt the Master.

      But Buddh heeded not,

      Sitting serene, with perfect virtue walled

      As is a stronghold by its gates and ramps;

      Also the Sacred Tree—the Bodhi-tree—

      Amid that tumult stirred not, but each leaf

      Glistened as still as when on moonlit eves

      No zephyr spills the glittering gems of dew;

      For all this clamour raged outside the shade

      Spread by those cloistered stems.

      In the third watch,

      The earth being still, the hellish legions fled,

      A soft air breathing from the sinking moon,

      Our Lord attained samma-sambuddh; he saw

      By light which shines beyond our mortal ken

      The line of all his lives in all the worlds,

      Far back and farther back and farthest yet,

      Five hundred lives and fifty. Even as one,

      At rest upon a mountain-summit, marks

      His path wind up by precipice and crag

      Past thick-set woods shrunk to a patch; through bogs

      Glittering false-green; down hollows where he toiled

      Breathless; on dizzy ridges where his feet

      Had well-nigh slipped; beyond the sunny lawns,

      The cataract and the cavern and the pool,

      Backward to those dim flats wherefrom he sprang

      To reach the blue—thus Buddha did behold

      Life's upward steps long-linked, from levels low

      Where breath is base, to higher slopes and higher

      Whereon the ten great Virtues wait to lead

      The climber skyward. Also, Buddha saw

      How new life reaps what the old life did sow;

      How where its march breaks off its march begins;

      Holding the gain and answering for the loss;

      And how in each life good begets more good,

      Evil fresh evil; Death but casting up

      Debit or credit, whereupon th' account

      In merits or demerits stamps itself

      By sure arithmic—where no tittle drops—

      Certain and just, on some new-springing life;

      Wherein are packed and scored past thoughts and deeds,

      Strivings and triumphs, memories and marks

      Of lives foregone:

      And in the middle watch,

      Our Lord attained Abhidjna—insight vast

      Ranging beyond this sphere to spheres unnamed,

      System on system, countless worlds and suns

      Moving in splendid measures, band by band

      Linked in division, one yet separate,

      The silver islands of a sapphire sea

      Shoreless, unfathomed, undiminished, stirred

      With waves which roll in restless tides of change.

      He saw those Lords of Light who hold their worlds

      By bonds invisible, how they themselves

      Circle obedient round mightier orbs

      Which serve profounder splendours, star to star

      Flashing the ceaseless radiance of life

      From centres ever shifting unto cirques

      Knowing no uttermost. These he beheld

      With unsealed vision, and of all those worlds,

      Cycle on epicycle, all their tale

      Of Kalpas, Mahakalpas—terms of time

      Which no man grasps, yea, though he knew to count

      The drops in Gunga from her springs to the sea,

      Measureless unto speech—whereby these wax

      And wane; whereby each of this heavenly host

      Fulfils its shining life and darkling dies.

      Sakwal by Sakwal, depths and heights be passed

      Transported through the blue infinitudes,

      Marking—behind all modes, above all spheres,

      Beyond the burning impulse of each orb—

      That fixed decree at silent work which wills

      Evolve the dark to light, the dead to life,

      To fulness void, to form the yet unformed,

      Good unto better, better unto best,

      By wordless edict; having none to bid,

      None to forbid; for this is past all gods

      Immutable, unspeakable, supreme,

      A Power which builds, unbuilds, and builds again,

      Ruling all things accordant to the rule

      Of virtue, which is beauty, truth, and use.

      So that all things do well which serve the Power,

      And ill which hinder; nay, the worm does well

      Obedient to its kind; the hawk does well

      Which carries bleeding quarries to its young;

      The dewdrop and the star shine sisterly,

      Globing together in the common work;

      And man, who lives to die, dies to live well

      So if he guide his ways

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