bring to them
     What is ordained.  Therefore, I pray thee, find
     Black mustard-seed, a tola; only mark
     Thou take it not from any hand or house
     Where father, mother, child, or slave hath died;
     It shall be well if thou canst find such seed.’ 
     Thus didst thou speak, my lord!”

                                The Master smiled

Exceeding tenderly.  “Yea!  I spake thus,
Dear Kisagotami!  But didst thou find
The seed?”

            “I went, Lord, clasping to my breast

The babe, grown colder, asking at each hut,—­
Here in the jungle and toward the town,—­
’I pray you, give me mustard, of your grace,
A tola—­black’ and each who had it gave,
For all the poor are piteous to the poor: 
But when I asked, ’In my friend’s household here
Hath any peradventure ever died—­
Husband or wife, or child, or slave?’ they said:—­
’O sister! what is this you ask? the dead
Are very many and the living few!’
So, with sad thanks, I gave the mustard back,
And prayed of others, but the others said,
‘Here is the seed, but we have lost our slave!’
‘Here is the seed, but our good man is dead!’
’Here is some seed, but he that sowed it died! 
Between the rain-time and the harvesting!’
Ah, sir!  I could not find a single house
Where there was mustard-seed and none had died! 
Therefore I left my child—­who would not suck
Nor smile—­beneath the wild vines by the stream,
To seek thy face and kiss thy feet, and pray
Where I might find this seed and find no death,
If now, indeed, my baby be not dead,
As I do fear, and as they said to me.”

     “My sister! thou hast found,” the Master said,
     “Searching for what none finds, that bitter balm
     I had to give thee.  He thou lovedst slept
     Dead on thy bosom yesterday; to-day
     Thou know’st the whole wide world weeps with thy woe;
     The grief which all hearts share grows less for one. 
     Lo!  I would pour my blood if it could stay
     Thy tears, and win the secret of that curse
     Which makes sweet love our anguish, and which drives
     O’er flowers and pastures to the sacrifice—­
     As these dumb beasts are driven—­men their lords. 
     I seek that secret:  bury thou thy child!”

     So entered they the city side by side,
     The herdsmen and the Prince, what time the sun
     Gilded slow Sona’s distant stream, and threw
     Long shadows down the street and through the gate
     Where the King’s men kept watch.  But when these saw
     Our Lord bearing the lamb, the guards stood back,
     The market-people drew their wains aside,
     In the bazaar buyers and sellers stayed
     The war of tongues to gaze on that mild face;
     The smith, with lifted hammer in his hand,
     Forgot to strike; the