Over the temple cawing flies
The crow with carrion in his beak.
Buddha within lifts not his eyes
In pity or reproval meek;
Nor, in the bamboos, where they bow
A respite from the blinding sun,
The old priest—dreaming painless how
Nirvana's calm will come when won.
"All is allusion, Maya, all
The world of will," the spent East seems
Whispering in me, "And the call
Of Life is but a call of dreams."
[SPIRIT OF RAIN]
(Miyanoshita, Japan, 1905)
Spirit of rain—
With all thy ghosts of mist about the mountain, lonely
As a gray train
Of souls newly discarnate seeking new life only!
Spirit of rain!
Leading them thro' dim torii, up fane-ways onward
Till not in vain
They tremble upon the peaks and plunge rejoicing dawnward.
Spirit of rain!
So would I lead my dead thoughts high and higher,
Till they regain
Birth and the beauty of a new life's fire.