with the bitter yoke,
     The rage to live which makes all living strife—­
     The Prince Siddartha sighed.  “Is this,” he said,
     “That happy earth they brought me forth to see? 
     How salt with sweat the peasant’s bread! how hard
     The oxen’s service! in the brake how fierce
     The war of weak and strong! i’ th’ air what plots! 
     No refuge e’en in water.  Go aside
     A space, and let me muse on what ye show.” 
     So saying, the good Lord Buddha seated him
     Under a jambu-tree, with ankles crossed,
     As holy statues sit, and first began
     To meditate this deep disease of life,
     What its far source and whence its remedy. 
     So vast a pity filled him, such wide love
     For living things, such passion to heal pain,
     That by their stress his princely spirit passed
     To ecstasy, and, purged from mortal taint
     Of sense and self, the boy attained thereat
     Dhyana, first step of “the Path.”

          THE PURE SACRIFICE OF BUDDHA

          From ‘The Light of Asia’

     Onward he passed,
     Exceeding sorrowful, seeing how men
     Fear so to die they are afraid to fear,
     Lust so to live they dare not love their life,
     But plague it with fierce penances, belike
     To please the gods who grudge pleasure to man;
     Belike to balk hell by self-kindled hells;
     Belike in holy madness, hoping soul
     May break the better through their wasted flesh. 
     “O flowerets of the field!” Siddartha said,
     “Who turn your tender faces to the sun,—­
     Glad of the light, and grateful with sweet breath
     Of fragrance and these robes of reverence donned,
     Silver and gold and purple,—­none of ye
     Miss perfect living, none of ye despoil
     Your happy beauty.  O ye palms! which rise
     Eager to pierce the sky and drink the wind
     Blown from Malaya and the cool blue seas;
     What secret know ye that ye grow content,
     From time of tender shoot to time of fruit,
     Murmuring such sun-songs from your feathered crowns? 
     Ye too, who dwell so merry in the trees,—­
     Quick-darting parrots, bee-birds, bulbuls, doves,—­
     None of ye hate your life, none of ye deem
     To strain to better by foregoing needs! 
     But man, who slays ye—­being lord—­is wise,
     And wisdom, nursed on blood, cometh thus forth
     In self-tormentings!”

                           While the Master spake
     Blew down the mount the dust of pattering feet,
     White goats and black sheep winding slow their way
     With many a lingering nibble at the tufts,
     And wanderings from the path, where water gleamed
     Or wild figs hung.  But always as they strayed
     The herdsman cried, or slung his sling, and kept
     The silly crowd still