Psalms of the Sisters L: Paṭācārā's Five Hundred

The way by which men come we cannot know;
Nor can we see the path by which they go.
Why mournest then for him who came to thee,
Lamenting through thy tears: 'My son! my son!'

Seeing thou knowest not the way he came,
Nor yet the manner of his leaving thee?
Weep not, for such is here the life of man.

Unask'd he came, unbidden went he hence.
Lo! ask thyself again whence came thy son
To bide on earth this little breathing space?

By one way come and by another gone,
As man to die, and pass to other births–
So hither and so hence–why would ye weep?

Lo! from my heart the hidden shaft is gone,
The shaft that nestled there she hath removed,
And that consuming grief for my dead child
Which poisoned all the life of me is dead.

To-day my heart is healed, my yearning stayed,
Perfected the deliverance wrought in me.
Lo! I for refuge to the Buddha go–
The only wise–the Order and the Norm.