MAYA

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."