Nirvana Days - Rice Cale Young

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buy and dream and dream and buy,

      Lost far in Mâyâ's sphere.

      Then gathering up my gains at last,

      Mid "sayonaras" soft

      And bows and gentle courtesies

      Repeated oft and oft,

      My host and I should part – "O please

      The skies much weal to waft

      His years," I'd think, then cross San-jo

      To fair Chion-in aloft.

      For set aloft and set apart,

      Beyond the city's din,

      Under the shade of ancient heights

      Lies templed calm Chion-in.

      And there the great bell's booming fills

      Its gates all day, and thin

      Low beating on mokugyo, by

      Priests passioning for sin.

      And there the sun upon its courts

      And carvings, gods and graves,

      Rests as no light of earth-lands known,

      Like to Nirvana laves

      And washes with sweet under-flow

      Into the soul's far caves.

      And no more shall this life seem real

      To one who feels its waves.

      "No more!" I'd say, then wander on

      To Kiyomizu-shrine,

      Which is so old antiquity's

      Far self cannot divine

      Its birth, but knows that Kwannon, she

      Of mercy's might benign,

      Has reached her thousand hands always

      From it to Nippon's line.

      And She should hear my many prayers,

      And have my freest gifts.

      And many days beside her should

      I watch the crystal rifts

      Of Otawa's clear waters earn

      Their way, o'er rocks and drifts,

      Beside the trestled temple down —

      Like murmurs of sweet shrifts.

      Then, when the city wearied me,

      To Katsura I'd wend —

      A garden hid across green miles

      Of rice-lands quaintly penned.

      And, by the stork-bestridden lake,

      I'd walk or musing mend

      My soul with lotus-memories

      And hopes – without an end.

III

      Or were I in Japan today,

      Hiroshima should call

      My heart – Hiroshima built round

      Her ancient castle wall.

      By the low flowering moat where sun

      And silence ever fall

      Into a swoon, I'd build again

      Old days of Daimyo thrall.

      Of charge and bloody countercharge,

      When many a samurai

      Fierce-panoplied fell at its pale,

      Suppressing groan or cry;

      Suppressing all but silent hates

      That swept from eye to eye,

      While lips smiled decorously on,

      Or mocked urbane goodbye.

      Then to the river I would pass

      And drift upon its tide

      By many a tea-house hung in bloom

      Above its mirrored side.

      And geisha fluttering gay before

      Their guests should pause in pied

      Kimono, then with laughter bright

      Behind the shoji hide.

      Unto an isle of Ugina's

      Low port my craft should swing,

      Or scarce an island seems it now

      To my fair fancying,

      But a shrined jut of earth up thro

      The sea from which to sing

      Unto the evening star of all

      Night's incarnations bring.

      Then backward thro the darkened streets

      I'd walk: long lanterns writ

      With ghostly characters should dance

      Beside each door, or flit,

      Thin paper spirits, to and fro

      And mow the wind, when it

      Demanded of them reverence

      And passed with twirl or twit.

      What music, too, of samisen

      And koto I should hear!

      Tinkle on weirder tinkle thro

      The strangely wistful ear

      What shadows on the shoji-door

      Of my dim soul should veer

      All night in sleep, and haunt the light

      Of many a coming year!

IV

      Or were I in Japan today,

      From Ujina I'd sail

      For mountain-isled Migajima

      Upon the distance, frail

      As the mirage, to Amida,

      Of this world's transient tale,

      Where he sits clothed in boundless light

      And sees it vainly ail.

      Up to the great sea-torii,

      Its temple-gate, I'd wind,

      There furl my sail beneath its beam;

      And soon my soul should find

      What it shall never, tho it sift

      The world elsewhere, and blind

      Itself at last with sight of all

      Earth's blisses to mankind.

      "Migajima! Migajima!"

      How would enchantment chant

      The syllables within me, till

      Desire should cease and pant

      Of passion press no more my will —

      But let charmed peace supplant

      All thought of birth and death and birth —

      Yea, karma turn askant.

      For on Migajima none may

      Give birth and none may die —

      Since birth and death are equal sins

      Unto the wise. So I

      Should muse all day where the sea spills

      Its murmur softly by

      The still stone lanterns all arow

      Under the deathless sky.

      And under cryptomeria-tree

      And camphor-tree and pine,

      And tall pagoda, rising roof

      On roof into the shine

      Of

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