On the lotus blossom the Buddha is sitting, With the cobra's hood on his head; The sun and the moon behind him enfigured In a bronze of gold and of red. For the half of a thousand years he had sat there When the Bethlehem hymn was sung; To Nirvana's passionless peace he was passing When the Christ-Child's anthem rung. On his forehead the spot of the chosen immortal, Revered as the seal divine; Ample-lipped is his mouth, but no human emotion Breaks the fullness of curving line. And narrow his eyes, but life-shot, and gazing With a haunting calm to your own; On his lap the folded fingers are lying, The labors of man to them unknown. And the nerveless type of a dream he embodies, The inertia of unpulsed soul; But a mystery vast as the years immemorial Which into the silence roll. And illusions as subtle as orient attars Across the lulled senses creep, Till my spirit is weighted with æons and æons Of stillness and dreamless sleep. |