Iii

Then from the world I turn'd my steps afar; I came there where the holy Trinity And all the blessed saints in glory are, And did the beatific vision see, And how those happy are that once did mourn; But my heart said--All this is naught to me; Nor knew I why all these should be reborn. Where moon-fac'd houris wanton arms do fling Round Mahmud's blessed, I past by in scorn, For my heart dream'd a deeper revelling. Then came I to that banquet more divine That Jayadeva and that Jami sing; And the fair goblet fill'd full of the wine Brought the cup-bearer clad with wantonness; And there with the beloved and the vine My heart grew weary of that blessedness. From life I past, finding no joy therein. The vision and the vine and drunkenness Still like a circle ever closing in. Then I departed to the final peace, Sick of what is and shall be and hath been, Of Brahma, as the drop sinks in the seas: I past out from the bonds of thee-and-me, Lost in that Infinite whose being is Glory in all things and reality; But therein I that was not I, alas In that deliverance from me-and-thee Where all illusion fadeth like to grass, Found naught that equall'd my undimm'd desire; --If that reality then real was, What is that real more than trodden mire? Then from all being did my spirit pass, Sick of all being whether low or higher. Out of that circle unto nothingness I came, unto Nirvana, the far goal Of many a holy saint, where visions cease; But nothingness did not my heart console. Ah not in nothingness is any peace, Nor in peace any peace, nor in the whole, Nor in the vine nor in the vision, nor In being nor non-being, nor in all That man hath dream'd of and hath anguisht for. Nay not in joy nor the vine jovial, Nor in the perfume of the lov'd one's breath, Nay nor in anything anywhere at all; Nor in illusion; nor what sundereth Illusion; in the sundering of that chain There is no joy; and not alas in death Find I that thing whereof my soul is fain. All these things also are all vanity No less than sun and stars that wax and wane Forever in the everlasting sky.