FAR FUJIYAMA

Against the phantom gold of failing skies

I see the ghost of Fujiyama rise

And think of the innumerable eyes

That have beheld its vision sunset-crowned.

The peasant in his field of rice or tea,

The prince in gardens dreaming by the sea,

The priest to whom the sêmi in the tree

Was but some shrilling soul's incarnate sound.

And as I think upon them, lo, the trance

Of backward time and distant circumstance,

Of Karma's all-remembering necromance,

Lies suddenly before my boundless sight.

It is as if, a moment, Buddhahood

Were given to me; as if understood

At last were vague Nirvana's vaguer good;

As if time were dissolved in living light.