University of Virginia Library

You ask me, Dear! what perfect thing
I find in all my wandering
These ancient Sanskrit scrolls amid,
Where India's deepest heart is hid?
Nothing, I answer, half so wise
As one glance from your gentle eyes!
Nothing so tender or so true
As one word interchanged with you!
Because, two souls conjoined can see
More than the best philosophy.
Yet, wise and true and tender lore
Waits him who will those leaves explore,
Which, plucked from palm or plantain-tree,
Display, in Devanâgari,
The grand, sonorous, long-linked lines
Wherethrough that “Light of Asia” shines.
And you have asked; so I obey,
Hastening upon your knees to lay
This lovely lotus-blossom, grown
Long ere our Mary's Rose was blown;
This pearl of hope, fetched from the sea
Before they fished at Galilee!
For thus, I think, your kindest eyes
May read deep truth with glad surprise.
The subtle thought, the far-off faith,
The deathless spirit mocking Death,
The close-packed sense, hard to unlock
As diamonds from the mother-rock,
The solemn, brief, simplicity,
The insight, fancy, mystery
Of Hindoo scriptures—all are had
In this divine Upanishad.

I read it in my Indian days.
Beyond our city, where the ways
Parted—for Looni and Kirkî—
A hill, steep-sloping you might see.
It rises from the river's bank,
And all its sides are green and rank
With spear-grass, bamboo, cactus, thorn;
And bright with fragrant blossoms, borne
By neem and baubul; and the air
Sighs cool across a prospect fair
Of Deccan villages and fields,
Where the dark soil rich tribute yields
Of pulse and millet. Farther back,
Śivaji's mountains, flat and black,
Fold round the plain. Upon that hill
There stood (I think it stands there still!)
A little shrine, in ancient days
Built by a Sett to Siva's praise;
Milk-white it glimmered through the green,
Save that upon its gate was seen
A blood-red hand impressed, and, near,
The three-fold mark to Siva dear.
Sacred and placid was the place,
With cool, smooth walls, and slender grace
Of domed roof, and a peepul tree,
And platform of hewn masonry,
Whereto the distant city's hum
Came soft, with broken beats of drum
Which did not mar the solitude;
For all around that temple cooed
The creamy doves; striped squirrels leaped
From stem to stem, the musk-rat peeped
Under the wall; beside the porch
Flamed the red lizard like a torch
Flung on the rock; the egrets stretched
Their snowy wings; green parrots fetched
Fruit to their young with joyous cries;
The monkey-peoples' mild brown eyes
Glittered from bough and coping-stone;
And—underneath a root—alone,
Dwelt a great cobra, thick and black,
With ash-grey mottlings on his back,—
A most prodigious snake!—but he
Kept the peace, too, religiously,
With folded hood, and fangs of death
Sheathed, while he drew his slow, cold breath,
Coiled in the sun, or lapped the feast
Of warm milk poured him by the Priest.

For in that Temple lived a Sage,
A Twice-born, reverend by his age
And wondrous wisdom; and, it fell
For some small service,—vain to tell,—
This Brahman was my friend; and so,
Ofttimes at daybreak I would go
To watch the sunlight flood the skies,
And ask of strange philosophies.
Thus chanced it that one morn we had
Talk on this same Upanishad,—
(Beyond my learning, then, as now,)
But herein is it written how
I slowly spelled the text we read,
And, at the hard words, what he said—
(For nowise shall one comprehend
Such lore without some sager friend—)
So have you, Dear! the help I had
Conning this great Upanishad,
While the snake sunned himself at ease,
And monkeys chattered in the trees,
And on the Moota-Moola lay
The first gold of the growing Day.