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 allusion, Maya, all
The world of will," the spent East seems
Whispering in me, "And the call
Of Life is but a call of dreams."