Their eager souls drank in his living words
As those who thirst drink in the living spring.
Then reverently they kissed his garment's hem,
And home returned, while he lay down to sleep.
And sweetly as a babe the master slept--
No doubts, no darkness, and no troubled dreams.
When rosy dawn next lit the eastern sky,
And morning's grateful coolness filled the air,
The master rose and his ablutions made.
With bowl and staff in hand he took his way
Toward Varanassi, hoping there to find
The five toward whom his earnest spirit yearned.
Ten days have passed, and now the rising sun.
That hangs above the distant mountain-peaks
Is mirrored back by countless rippling waves
That dance upon the Ganges' yellow stream,
Swollen by rains and melted mountain-snows,
And glorifies the thousand sacred fanes[2]
With gilded pinnacles and spires and domes
That rise in beauty on its farther bank,
While busy multitudes glide up and down
With lightly dipping oars and swelling sails.
And pilgrims countless as those shining waves,
From far and near, from mountain, hill and plain,
With dust and travel-stained, foot-sore, heart-sick,
Here came to bathe within the sacred stream,
Here came to die upon its sacred banks,
Seeking to wash the stains of guilt away,
Seeking to lay their galling burdens down.
Scoff not at these poor heavy-laden souls!
Blindly they seek, but that all-seeing Eye
That sees the tiny sparrow when it falls,
Is watching them, His angels hover near.
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