The Dawn and the Day
or
The Buddha and the Christ.
BOOK I.
Northward from Ganges' stream and India's plains
An ancient city crowned a lofty hill,
Whose high embattled walls had often rolled
The surging, angry tide of battle back.
Walled on three sides, but on the north a cliff,
At once the city's quarry and its guard,
Cut out in galleries, with vaulted roofs[1]
Upborne upon cyclopean columns vast,
Chiseled with art, their capitals adorned
With lions, elephants, and bulls, life size,
Once dedicate to many monstrous gods
Before the Aryan race as victors came,
Then prisons, granaries and magazines,
Now only known to bandits and wild beasts.
This cliff, extending at each end, bends north,
And rises in two mountain-chains that end
In two vast snow-capped Himalayan peaks,
Between which runs a glittering glacial stream,
A mighty moving mass of crystal ice,
Crushing the rocks in its resistless course;
From which bursts forth a river that had made
Of all this valley one great highland lake,
Which on one side had burst its bounds and cut
In myriad years a channel through the rock,
So narrow that a goat might almost leap
From cliff to cliff—these cliffs so smooth and steep
The eagles scarce could build upon their sides;
This yawning chasm so deep one scarce could hear
The angry waters roaring far below.
This stream, guided by art, now fed a lake
Above the city and behind this cliff,
Which, guided thence in channels through the rock,
Fed many fountains, sending crystal streams
Through every street and down the terraced hill,
And through the plain in little silver streams,
Spreading the richest verdure far and wide.[2]
Here was the seat of King Suddhodana,
His royal park, walled by eternal hills,
Where trees and shrubs and flowers all native grew;
For in its bounds all the four seasons met,
From ever-laughing, ever-blooming spring
To savage winter with eternal snows.
Here stately palms, the banyan's many trunks,
Darkening whole acres with its grateful shade,
And bamboo groves, with graceful waving plumes,
The champak, with its fragrant golden flowers,
Asokas, one bright blaze of brilliant bloom,
The mohra, yielding food and oil and wine,
The sacred sandal and the spreading oak,
The mountain-loving fir and spruce and pine,
And giant cedars, grandest of them all,
Planted in ages past, and thinned and pruned
With that high art that hides all trace of art,[3]
Were placed to please the eye and show their form
In groves, in clumps, in jungles and alone.
Here all a forest seemed; there open groves,
With vine-clad trees, vines hanging from each limb,
A pendant chain of bloom, with shaded drives
And walks, with rustic seats, cool grots and dells,
With fountains playing and with babbling brooks,
And stately swans sailing on little lakes,
While peacocks, rainbow-tinted shrikes, pheasants,
Glittering like precious stones, parrots, and birds
Of all rich plumage, fly from tree to tree,
The whole scene vocal with sweet varied song;
And here a widespread lawn bedecked with flowers,
With clumps of brilliant roses grown to trees,
And fields with dahlias spread,[4] not stiff and prim
Like the starched ruffle of an ancient dame,
But growing in luxuriance rich and wild,
The colors of the evening and the rainbow joined,
White, scarlet, yellow, crimson, deep maroon,
Blending all colors in one dazzling blaze;
There orchards bend beneath their luscious loads;
Here vineyards climb the hills thick set with grapes;
There rolling pastures spread, where royal mares,
High bred, and colts too young for bit or spur,
Now quiet feed, then, as at trumpet's call,
With lion bounds, tails floating, neck outstretched,[5]
Nostrils distended, fleet as the flying wind
They skim the plain, and sweep in circles wide—
Nature's Olympic, copied, ne'er excelled.
Here, deer with dappled fawn bound o'er the grass,[6]
And sacred herds, and sheep with skipping lambs;
There, great white elephants in quiet nooks;
While high on cliffs framed in with living green
Goats climb and seem to hang and feed in air—
Sweet spot, with all to please and nothing to offend.
Here on a hill the royal palace stood,
A gem of art; and near, another hill,
Its top crowned by an aged banyan tree,
Its sides clad in strange jyotismati grass,[7]
By day a sober brown, but in the night
Glowing as if the hill were all aflame—
Twin wonders to the dwellers in the plain,
Their guides and landmarks day and night,
This glittering palace and this glowing hill.
Within, above the palace rose a tower,
Which memory knew but as the ancient tower,
Foursquare and high, an altar and a shrine
On its broad top, where burned perpetual fire,
Emblem of boundless and eternal love
And truth that knows no night, no cloud, no change,
Long since gone out, with that most ancient faith
In one great Father, source of life and light.[8]
Still round this ancient tower, strange hopes and fears,
And memories handed down from sire to son,
Were clustered thick. An army, old men say,
Once camped against the city, when strange lights
Burst from this tower, blinding their dazzled eyes.
They fled amazed, nor dared to look behind.
The people bloody war and cruel bondage saw
On every side, and they at peace and free,
And thought a power to save dwelt in that tower.
And now strange prophecies and sayings old
Were everywhere rehearsed, that from this hill
Should come a king or savior of the world.
Even the poor dwellers in the distant plain
Looked up; they too had heard that hence should come
One quick to hear the poor and strong to save.
And who shall dare to chide their simple faith?
This humble reverence for the great unknown
Brings men near God, and opens unseen worlds,
Whence comes all life, and where all power doth dwell.
Morning and evening on this tower the king,
Before the rising and the setting sun,
Blindly, but in his father's faith, bowed down.
Then he would rise and on his kingdom gaze.
East, west, hills beyond hills stretched far away,
Wooded, terraced, or bleak and bald and bare,
Till in dim distance all were leveled lost.
One rich and varied carpet spread far south,
Of fields, of groves, of busy cities wrought,
With mighty rivers seeming silver threads;
And to the north the Himalayan chain,
Peak beyond peak, a wall of crest and crag,
Ice bound, snow capped, backed by intensest blue,
Untrod, immense, that, like a crystal wall.
In myriad varied tints the glorious light
Of rising and of setting sun reflects;
His noble city lying at his feet,
And his broad park, tinged by the sun's slant rays
A thousand softly rich and varied shades.
Still on this scene of grandeur, plenty, peace
And ever-varying beauty, he would gaze
With sadness. He had heard these prophecies,
And felt the unrest in that great world within,
Hid from our blinded eyes, yet ever near,
The very soul and life of this dead world,
Which seers and prophets open-eyed have seen,
On which the dying often raptured gaze,
And where they live when they are mourned as dead.
This world was now astir, foretelling day.
"A king shall come, they say, to rule the world,
If he will rule; but whence this mighty king?
My years decline apace, and yet no son
Of mine to rule or light my funeral pile."