(Hiroshima, Japan, 1905)

Pale sampans up the river glide, With set sails vanishing and slow; In the blue west the mountains hide, As visions that too soon will go.

Across the rice-lands, flooded deep, The peasant peacefully wades on-- As, in unfurrowed vales of sleep, A phantom out of voidness drawn.

Over the temple cawing flies The crow with carrion in his beak. Buddha within lifts not his eyes In pity or reproval meek;

Nor, in the bamboos, where they bow A respite from the blinding sun, The old priest--dreaming painless how Nirvana's calm will come when won.

"All is illusion, Maya, all The world of will," the spent East seems Whispering in me; "and the call Of Life is but a call of dreams."