THE WANDERER

When moonlight on the face

Of the great Buddha falls

As he sits in Nirvana

On the shores of Kamakura,

When the pines about him place

Soft shadows at his feet

Like offerings of penitence and tears,

I hear in the grace

Of the wind's low susurra

A voice that calls me still

To my home within the West,

But I've lingered overlong

In the East's strange arcana

And no more is there desire within my breast.

I left it when a boy,

That far home and, alas,

‘ Twas so fair that my dreaming

Earth had fairer was a madness.

I left it for the joy

Of wandering the world,

And heathen-hearted lands have I beheld!

But when at last cloy

Of delight brought sadness

Like lotus to my veins,

And forgetfulness seemed fate,

I had fared unto this shrine

And the moon as now was beaming,

And here have I awaited — and await.

But not for any gift

Of its god, or any grace

That in living or in dying

Men in text or sutra sigh for.

And not for any shrift

Nirvana has, or skies

Where Paradise imperishably smiles.

But only for the sift

Of the wind, that seems to die for

My soul's enduring peace

In the dwelling of the Tomb.

And only for the drift

Of the moon that comes denying

Eternity to everything but Doom.