High up a winding flight of stony steps
  See Gautama upon his lotus throne! 
  More near the gate, her lovely face downcast,
  Sits Mercy’s Goddess, pity in her eye,
  To greet the weary climbers and to hear
  Their many-coloured tales of woe and want.

  The Buddha, in sublime repose, sees not
  His prostrate worshippers; and they to him
  No prayer address, save hymns of grateful praise.[1]
  ’Twas he who for a blinded world sought out
  The secret of escape from misery;
  The splendour of a royal court resigned,
  He found in poverty a higher realm! 
  Yet greater far the victory, when he broke
  The chain of Fate and spurned the wheel of change. 
  To suffering humanity he says,
  “Tread in my steps:  You, too, may find release.”

[Footnote 1:  Such as Om mani padmi hum ("O the jewel in the lotus")]

  Like him, the Pusa was of princely birth,
  But not like him did she forsake a throne,
  Nor yet like him did she consent to see
  Nirvana’s pearly gates behind her close. 
  A field for charity her regal state. 
  Her path with ever-blooming flowers she strewed,
  Her sympathy to joy a relish gave,
  To sorrows manifold it brought relief,
  Forgetting self she lived for others’ weal
  Till higher than Meru her merit rose.[2]

[Footnote 2:  Mt.  Meru, the Indian Olympus.]

  At length a Voice celestial smote her ear. 
  “Nirvana’s portal to thee open stands,
  The crown of Buddhaship is thine by right. 
  No wave of care that shore can ever reach,
  No cry of pain again thine ear assail;
  But fixed in solitary bliss thou’lt see
  The circling ages rolling at thy feet!”

  “Shall I then have no tidings of mankind? 
  Such heaven a throne of glittering ice would be. 
  That changeless bliss to others thou may’st give. 
  Happiest am I th’ unhappy to upraise. 
  Oh for a thousand hands[3] the task to ply! 
  To succour and relieve be mine,” she said,
  “Bought though it be by share of suffering. 
  Turn then the wheel,[4] and back to earth again.”

[Footnote 3:  She is often so represented, as the symbol of present Providence.]

[Footnote 4:  Lunhui, the wheel of destiny, within which birth and death succeed without end or interval.]

  From out the blue came down the Voice once more: 
  “Thy great refusal wins a higher prize;
  A kingdom new thy charity hath gained.[5]
  And there shalt thou, the Queen of Mercy, reign,
  Aloof from pain or weakness of thine own,
  With quickened sense to hear and power to save.”

[Footnote 5:  She escapes the wheel, but remains on the border of Nirvana, where, as her name signifies, she “hears the prayers of men.”]

  Fair image thou!  Almost I worship thee,
  Frail shadow of a Christ that hears and feels!