The night has passed, the day-star fades from sight,
And morning's softest tint of rose and gold
Tinges the east and tips the mountain-tops.
The silent village stirs with waking life,
The bleat of goats and low of distant herds,
The song of birds and crow of jungle-cocks
Breathe softest music through the dewy air.
And now two girls,[4] just grown to womanhood,
The lovely daughters of the village lord,
Trapusha one, and one Balika called,
Up with the dawn, trip lightly o'er the grass,
Bringing rich curds and rice picked grain by grain,
A willing offering to their guardian god--
Who dwelt, as all the simple folk believed,
Beneath an aged bodhi-tree that stood
Beside the path and near where Buddha lay--
To ask such husbands as their fancies paint,
Gentle and strong, and noble, true and brave;
And having left their gifts and made their vows,
With timid steps the maidens stole away.
But while the outer world is filled with life.
That inner world from whence this life proceeds,
Concealed from sight by matter's blinding folds,
Whose coarser currents fill with wondrous power
The nervous fluid of the universe
Which darts through nature's frame, from star to star,
From cloud to cloud, filling the world with awe;
Now harnessed to our use, a patient drudge,
Heedless of time or space, bears human thought
From land to land and through the ocean's depths;
And bears the softest tones of human speech
Faster than light, farther than ocean sounds;
And whirls the clattering car through crowded streets,
And floods with light the haunts of prowling thieves--
That inner world, whose very life is love,
Pure love, and perfect, infinite, intense,
That world is now astir.
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