Classic Poem

A LONG the scholar's glowing page
I read the Orient thinker's dream
Of things that are not what they seem,
Of mystic chant and Soma's rage.

The sunlight flooding all the room
To me again was Indra's smile,
And on the hearth the blazing pile
For Agni's sake did fret and fume.

Yet most I read of who aspire
To win Nirvana's deep repose, —
Of that long way the spirit goes
To reach the absence of desire.

But through the music of my book
Another music smote my ear, —
A tinkle silver-sweet and clear, —
The babble of the mountain-brook.

" Oh! leave, " it said, " your ancient seers;
Come out into the woods with me;
Behold an older mystery
Than Buddhist's hope or Brahman's fears! "

The voice so sweet I could but hear.
I sallied forth, with staff in hand,
Where, mile on mile, the mountain land
Was radiant with the dying year.

I heard the startled partridge whirr,
And crinkling through the tender grass
I saw the striped adder pass,
Where dropped the chestnut's prickly burr.

I saw the miracle of life
From death upspringing evermore;
The fallen tree a forest bore
Of tiny forms with beauty rife.

I gathered mosses rare and sweet,
The acorn in its carven cup;
'Mid heaps of leaves, wind-gathered up,
I trod with half-remorseful feet.

The maple's blush I made my own,
The sumac's crimson splendor bold,
The poplar's hue of paly gold,
The faded chestnut, crisp and brown.

I climbed the mountain's shaggy crest,
Where masses huge of molten rock,
After long years of pain and shock,
Fern-covered, from their wanderings rest.

Far, far below the valley spread
Its rich, roof-dotted, wide expanse;
And further still the sunlight's dance
The amorous river gayly led.

But, still, with all I heard or saw
There mingled thoughts of that old time,
And that enchanted Eastern clime
Where Buddha gave his mystic law, —

Till, wearied with the lengthy way,
I found a spot where all was still,
Just as the sun behind the hill
Was making bright the parting day.

On either side the mountains stood,
Masses of color rich and warm;
And over them, in giant form,
The rosy moon serenely glowed.

My heart was full as it could hold;
The Buddha's paradise was mine;
My mountain-nook its inmost shrine,
The fretted sky its roof of gold.

Nirvana's peace my soul had found, —
Absence complete of all desire, —
While the great moon was mounting higher
And deeper quiet breathed around.