Classic Poem

I.

The face of the god
In his shrine
Is wrought
Into a likeness half divine.
His dull
Gold face
Is strange with a peculiar grace:
Tender, but not pitiful.

II.

I was a sullen Scant-of-grace;
Five coats my skin looked through;
One passed the place
I lay in; turned, and threw
The image of the king
" Thanks,
" Broidered shanks,
" For bare Largess!
" No stress
" Shall bring
" To bargain even a shred of beggar's soul
" With thy obole. "

III.

The gods
Being wise,
Handle in disguise,
Seeing the odds.
Their task to leave sufficient traces,
Moving unaware;
For thickest covering of their faces,
Pity is the mask they wear

IV.

I was going to be burnt
For my crimes.
Ay! my withered vines were earned
Many times.
" Lead ye " ...(here he named my name),
" Haply to obtain a grace
" To his soul, to the market place,
" Where let living flame
" Swaddle and invest him, "
Spake the judge. I blessed him.

V.

Who pray for pity, in the thought
Discern the face
Of the god
As if the same were rudely wrought
Of stone by some long vanished race.
" Think a little of what you ask;
" What the counting of your throes is;
" Throw away that ugly mask,
" Which your praying interposes. "
Thus the tender god replies
With the arrows of his eyes.

VI.

Once a holy man
Set himself betwixt
Quaking bird and staring snake.
Straight the pied one fixed
Tooth in heel. Death gan
Have him, who gan speak:
" Sooth thy spirit, ruffled one.
" Lift the scale upon thine eye,
" Seeing thou art not undone
" Lift thy wing; fly
" Forth, but first thy feathers preen,
" So thy trouble be not seen,
" When thou art by
" Who waits for thee, the patient one. "
One stood between
Upon whose face
Shone a calm, a signal grace;
Not dim his eye, nor quick his breath.
Saith he whose hour was next to death:
" Whence I perceive, sir, thou art not a man. "
This history was declared at Jetavan.

VII.

Are there not those
Who, asking pity of the gods,
Know no repose
And say: " Those same are pitiless; "
(So they be.)
" We, weak, can still this fault redress.
" This is the apple of Dan Adam's tree:
" Let us be gods! " -?

Lord of the ever tender sea,
Whence, stooping, men lift pearls to make men glad,
These are the mad.