A hundred years like water glide,
Riches and rank are ashen cold,
Daily the dream of peace recedes:
By whom shall Sorrow be consoled?
The soldier, dauntless, draws his sword,
And there are tears and endless pain;
The winds arise, leaves flutter down,
And through the old thatch drips the rain.
Embroideries
If rank and wealth within the mind abide,
Then gilded dust is all your yellow gold.
Kings in their fretted palaces grow old;
Youth dwells for ever at Contentment's side.
A mist cloud hanging at the river's brim,
Pink almond flowers along the purple bough,
A hut rose-girdled under moon-swept skies,
A painted bridge half-seen in shadows dim, —
These are the splendours of the poor, and thou,
O wine of spring, the vintage of the wise.
Concentration
A hut green-shadowed among firs, —
A sun that slopes in amber air, —
Lone wandering, my head I bare,
While some far thrush the silence stirs.
No flocks of wild geese thither fly,
And she — ah! she is far away;
Yet all my thoughts behold her stay,
As in the golden hours gone by.
The clouds scarce dim the water's sheen,
The moon-bathed islands wanly show,
And sweet words falter to and fro —
Though the great River rolls between.
Motion
Like a water-wheel awhirl,
Like the rolling of a pearl;
Yet these but illustrate,
To fools, the final state.
The earth's great axis spinning on,
The never-resting pole of sky —
Let us resolve their Whence and Why,
And blend with all things into One;
Beyond the bounds of thought and dream,
Circling the vasty void as spheres
Whose orbits round a thousand years:
Behold the Key that fits my theme.