These eyes have seen Nirvana's sacred Sun,
And found the noble eightfold path that mounts
From life's low levels, mounts from death's dark shades
To changeless day, to never-ending rest."
Then with the prophet's newly kindled zeal,
Zeal for the truth his opened eyes had seen,
Zeal for the friends whose struggles he had shared,
Softened by sympathy and tender love,
He taught how selfishness was primal cause
Of every ill to which frail flesh is heir,
The poisoned fountain whence all sorrows flow,
The loathsome worm that coils about the root
And kills the germ of every springing joy,
The subtle foe that sows by night the tares
That quickly springing choke the goodly seed
Which left to grow would fill the daily life
With balmy fragrance and with precious fruit.
He showed that selfishness was life's sole bane
And love its great and sovereign antidote.
He showed how selfishness would change the child
From laughing innocence to greedy youth
And heartless manhood, cold and cruel age,
Which past the vale and stript of all disguise
Shrinks from the good, and eager slinks away
And seeks those dismal regions of the lost
His opened eyes with sinking heart had seen.
Then showed how love its guardian angel paints
Upon the cooing infant's smiling face,
Grows into gentle youth, and manhood rich
In works of helpfulness and brotherhood,
And ripens into mellow, sweet old age,
Childhood returned with all its gentleness,
Whose funeral-pile but lights the upward way
To those sweet fields his opened eyes had seen,
Those ever-widening mansions of delight.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116