Categories
- Antiques & Collectibles 13
- Architecture 36
- Art 47
- Bibles 22
- Biography & Autobiography 809
- Body, Mind & Spirit 47
- Business & Economics 24
- Computers 4
- Cooking 94
- Crafts & Hobbies 3
- Drama 346
- Education 45
- Family & Relationships 34
- Fiction 11809
- Games 19
- Gardening 17
- Health & Fitness 31
- History 1377
- House & Home 1
- Humor 147
- Juvenile Fiction 1873
- Juvenile Nonfiction 202
- Language Arts & Disciplines 88
- Law 16
- Literary Collections 686
- Literary Criticism 179
- Mathematics 13
- Medical 41
- Music 39
- Nature 179
- Non-Classifiable 1768
- Performing Arts 7
- Periodicals 1453
- Philosophy 62
- Photography 2
- Poetry 896
- Political Science 202
- Psychology 40
- Reference 154
- Religion 446
- Science 126
- Self-Help 6
- Social Science 80
- Sports & Recreation 34
- Study Aids 3
- Technology & Engineering 59
- Transportation 23
- Travel 463
- True Crime 29
Many Gods
by: Cale Young Rice
Publisher:
DigiLibraries.com
ISBN:
N/A
Language:
English
Published:
2 months ago
Downloads:
3
*You are licensed to use downloaded books strictly for personal use. Duplication of the material is prohibited unless you have received explicit permission from the author or publisher. You may not plagiarize, redistribute, translate, host on other websites, or sell the downloaded content.
Description:
Excerpt
"ALL'S WELL"
IThe illimitable leaping of the sea,
The mouthing of his madness to the moon,
The seething of his endless sorcery,
His prophecy no power can attune,
Swept over me as, on the sounding prow
Of a great ship that steered into the stars,
I stood and felt the awe upon my brow
Of death and destiny and all that mars.
II
The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast
Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung;
The sailor in his eyrie on the mast
Sang an "All's well," that to the spirit clung
Like a lost voice from some aërial realm
Where ships sail on forever to no shore,
Where Time gives Immortality the helm,
And fades like a far phantom from life's door.
III
"And is all well, O Thou Unweariable
Launcher of worlds upon bewildered space,"
Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dull
Building this world that bears a piteous race?
O was it launched too soon or launched too late?
Or can it be a derelict that drifts
Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate
On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?"
IV
The sea grew softer as I questioned—calm
With mystery that like an answer moved,
And from infinity there fell a balm,
The old peace that Godis, tho all unproved.
The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun
The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep,
There is no world that wanders, no not one
Of all the millions, that He does not keep.
(In Japan)
Where the fair golden idolsSit in darkness and in silence
While the temple drum beats solemnly and slow;
Where the tall cryptomerias
Sway in worship round about
And the rain that is falling whispers low;
I can hear strange voices
Of the dead and forgotten,
On the dimly rising incense I can see
The lives I have lived,
And my lives unbegotten,
Namu Amida Butsupity me!
I was born this karma
Of a mother in Chuzenji,
Where Nantai-zan looks down into the lake;
Where the white-thronged pilgrims
Climb to altars in the clouds
And behold the holy eastern dawn awake.
It was there I wandered
Till a priest of the Christians
With the crucifix he wore compelled my gaze.
In grief I had grown,
So upon its grief I pondered.
Namu Amida Butsu, keep my days!
It was wrong, he told me,
To pray Jiso for my children,
And Binzuru for healing of my ills.
And our gods so many
Were conceived, he said, in sin,
From Lord Shaka to the least upon the hills.
In despair I listened
For my heart beat hopeless,
Not a temple of my land had helped me live.
But alas that day
When I let my soul be christened!
Namu Amida Butsu, O forgive!
For the Christ they gave me
As the only Law and Lotus,
As the only way to Light that will not wane,
May perchance have power
For the people of the West,
But to me he seemed the servitor of pain.
For in pain he perished
As one born to passion:
In some other life no doubt his sin was great,
Tho they told me no,
Those who followed him and cherished.
Namu Amida Butsu, such is fate.
So again to idols
Of the Buddha who is boundless,
While the temple drum is beating thro the rain,
I have turned from treason
Into Meditation's truth,
From the strife the Western god regards as gain....