And here he found the light he long had sought,
Gilding at once Nirvana's blissful heights
And lighting life's sequestered, lowly vales--
A light whose inner life is perfect love,
A love whose outer form is living light,
Nirvana's Sun, the Light of all the worlds,[4]
Heart of the universe, whose mighty pulse
Gives heaven, the worlds and even hell their life,
Maker and Father of all living things
Matreya's[5] self, the Lover, Saviour, Guide,
The last, the greatest Buddha, who must rule
As Lord of all before the kalpa's end.
The way of life--the noble eightfold path,
The way of truth, the Dharma-pada--found,
With joy he bade his loving guides farewell,
With joy he turned from all those blissful scenes.
And when the rosy dawn next tinged the east,
And morning's burst of song had waked the day,
With staff and bowl he left the sacred tree--
Where pilgrims, passing pathless mountain-heights,
And desert sands, and ocean's stormy waves,
From every nation, speaking every tongue,
Should come in after-times to breathe their vows--
Beginning on that day his pilgrimage
Of five and forty years from place to place,
Breaking the cruel chains of caste and creed,
Teaching the law of love, the way of life.
[1]The later Buddhists make much of the doctrine of metempsychosis, but
in the undoubted sayings and Sutras or sermons of Buddha I find no
mention of it except in this way as the last hope of those who persist
through life in evil, while the good after death reach the other shore,
or Nirvana, where there is no more birth or death.
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