Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
32
IX.
High thoughts! yet haply Hindu still; so likeThe course—nor much unlike the goal—to those
The later Buddhists for the soul propose,
Dropping the dreary nihilistic phases
Of Sakya's faith too purely insane to strike
The fancy of the myriads, else its foes;
Backsliding into healthier dreams and brighter,
In Burmah or Nepaul; or such as lie
Obscurely hidden in the mystic cry,
The shaveling in red robes and yellow mitre,
In snowy Thibetan devoutly raises
At Lama-ridden Lhassa, when he phrases
In one short shibboleth his prayers and praises:
“Gem in the Lotus-flower, Amen!” whereby
He breathes his soul's desire to wing its flight
Through Æons of blest Being—height o'er height,
Till evermore suffused with purer light
It merge—from death, disease, old age and need,
And all the griefs of gross existence freed,—
Perfect, in Buddha's Soul—its boundless meed—
Absorbed in that All-perfect Infinite!—
A heterodox ‘Nirvana,’ worthier far
By ages of vast virtue to be won;
No ‘taper-flame blown out’—a blissful star
Lost in the splendour of the noonday sun.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |