Light Of Asia Sir Edwin Arnold

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Stronger then woe is will: that which was Good
Doth pass to Better Best.
I, Buddha, who wept with all my brothers tears,
Whose heart was broken by a whole world s woe,
Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty!
Ho! ye who suffer! know
Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels,
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
Its spokes of agony,
Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.
Behold, I show you Truth! Lower than hell,
Higher than Heaven, outside the utmost stars,
Farther than Brahma doth dwell,
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Before begining, and without an end,
As space eternal and as surety sure,
Is fi xed a Power divine which moves to good,
Only its laws endure.
This is its touch upon the blossomed rose,
The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves;
In dark soil and the silence of the seeds
The robe of Spring it weaves;
That is its painting on the glorious clouds,
And these its emeralds on the peacock s train;
It hath its stations in the stars; its slaves
In lightning, wind, and rain,
Out of the dark it wrought the heart of man,
Out of dull shells the pheasant s pencilled neck;
Ever at toil, it brings to loveliness
All ancient wrath and wreck.
The grey eggs in the golden sun-bird s nest
Its treasures are, the bees six-sided cell
Its honey-pot; the ant wots of its ways,
The white doves know them well.
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It spreadeth forth for flight the eagle s wings
What time she beareth home her prey; it sends
The she-wolf to her cubs; for unloved things
It fi ndeth food and friends.
It is not marred nor stayed in any use,
All liketh it; the sweet white milk it brings
To mothers breasts, it brings the white drops, too,
Wherewith the young snake stings.
The ordered music of the marching orbs
It makes in viewless canopy of sky;
In deep abyss of earth it hides up gold,
Sards, sapphires, lazuli.
Ever and ever fetching secrets forth,
It sitteth in the green of forest-glades
Nursing strange seedlings at the cedar s root,
Devising leaves, blooms, blades.
It slayeth and it saveth, nowise moved
Except unto the working out of doom;
Its threads are Love and Life; and Death and Pain
The shuttles of its loom.
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It maketh and unmaketh, mending all;
What it hath wrought is better than had been;
Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans
Its wistful hands between.
This is its work upon the things ye see,
The unseen things are; men s hearts and minds,
The thoughts, of peoples and their ways, and wills,
Those, too, the great Law binds.
Unseen it helpeth ye with faithful hands,
Unheard it speaketh stronger than the storm.
Pity and Love are man s because long stress
Moulded blind mass to form.
It will not be contemned of any one;
Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains;
The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss,
The hidden ill with pains.
It seeth everywhere and marketh all:
Do right it recompenseth! do one wrong
The equal retribution must be made,
Though Dharma tarry long.
It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true
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Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs;
Times are as nought, to-morrow it will judge,
Or after many days.
By this the slayer s knife did stab himself;
The unjust judge hath lost his own defender;
The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief
And spoiler rob, to render.
Such is the Law which moves to righteousness,
Which none at last can turn aside or stay;
The heart of it is Love, the end of it
Is Peace and Consummation sweet. Obey!
The Books say well, my Brothers! each man s life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes
The bygone right breeds bliss.
That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew!
So is a man s fate born.
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He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed,
Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth;
And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar
Him and the aching earth.
If he shall labour rightly, rooting these,
And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew,
Fruitful and fair and clean the ground shall be,
And rich the harvest due.
If he who liveth, learning whence woe springs,
Endureth patiently, striving to pay
His utmost debt for ancient evils done
In Love and Truth alway;
If making none to lack, he thoroughly purge
The lie and lust of self forth from his blood; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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