Buddha

    Would that by Hindu magic we became
    Dark monks of jeweled India long ago,
    Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know
    The foolishness of gold and love and station,
    The gospel of the Great Renunciation,
    The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun,
    The beggar's life, with far Nirvana gleaming:
    Lord, make us Buddhas, dreaming.

Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet known for his innovative performances of his poetry, which combined spoken word with music and theatrics. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Lindsay's work often revolved around American history and culture, reflecting his progressive social views. He played a significant role in the early 20th-century American poetry scene, influencing contemporaries and later poets with his dynamic style and passionate delivery.

Vachel Lindsay

Our Mother Pocahontas

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

What Grandpa Mouse Said

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

To Lady Jane

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

On the Building of Springfield

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

English

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To Buddha

    Awake again in Asia, Lord of Peace,
    Awake and preach, for her far swordsmen rise.
    And would they sheathe the sword before you, friend,
    Or scorn your way, while looking in your eyes?

    Good comrade and philosopher and prince,
    Thoughtful and thoroughbred and strong and kind,
    Dare they to move against your pride benign,
    Lord of the Law, high chieftain of the mind?

                *****

    But what can Europe say, when in your name
    The throats are cut, the lotus-ponds turn red?
    And what can Europe say, when with a laugh
    Old Asia heaps her hecatombs of dead?

Vachel Lindsay

Buddha At Kamakura

"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"



O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,
The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura,

Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
That worship at Kamakura,

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies
That flit beneath the Master's eyes.
He is beyond the Mysteries
But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, ...

Rudyard

Incense

    Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
    My friends, the incense-time has but begun.
    Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom,
    Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.

    And mountain-boulders in our aged West
    Shall guard the graves of hermits truth-endowed:
    And there the scholar from the Chinese hills
    Shall do deep honor, with his wise head bowed.

    And on our old, old plains some muddy stream,
    Dark as the Ganges, shall, like that strange tide -
    (Whispering mystery to half the earth) -
    Gather the praying millions to its side,

    And flow past halls with statues in white stone
    To saints unborn to-day, whose lives of grace
    Shall make one shining, universal church
    Where all Faith...

Vachel Lindsay

Above the Battle's Front

    St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John -
    Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,
    Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,
    And walked upon the water and the land,

    If you, with words celestial, stopped these kings
    For sober conclave, ere their battle great,
    Would they for one deep instant then discern
    Their crime, their heart-rot, and their fiend's estate?

    If you should float above the battle's front,
    Pillars of cloud, of fire that does not slay,
    Bearing a fifth within your regal train,
    The Son of David in his strange array -

    If, in his majesty, he towered toward Heaven,
    Would they have hearts to see or understand?
    ... Nay, for he hovers there to-night we know,
    Thorn-...

Vachel Lindsay

With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses

    I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
    Saying:    "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
    Saying:    "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
    And from your withering passion full release;
    Release from that white hand that stabbed you so.
    The road is calling.    With the wind you go,
    Forgetting her imperious disdain -
    Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."

    "Excellent Lord, I come.    But first," I said,
    "Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red.
    Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth,
    And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
    To that far valley where your river flows
    In Peace, that once I found in every rose."

Vachel Lindsay

Nirvana.

Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies,
Through seas of solitudes and vacancies,
And through my Self, the deepest of the seas,
I strive to thee, Nirvana.

Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense,
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence,
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense,
But not to thee, Nirvana.

By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves.
I served my masters till I made them slaves.
I baffled Death by hiding in his graves,
His watery graves, Nirvana.

And once I clomb a mountain's stony crown
And stood, and smiled no smile and frowned no frown,
Nor ate, nor drank, nor slept, nor faltered down,
Five days and nights, Nirvana.

Sunrise and noon and sunset and strange night
And shadow of large clouds and faint starlight

Sidney Lanier