the fragrant funeral-pile,
Weeping they placed their dead on their last couch,
The child within its father's nerveless arms;
And when all funeral rites had been performed,
The widow circled thrice the funeral-pile,
Distributing her gifts with lavish hand,
Bidding her friends a long and last farewell--
Then stopped, and raised her tearless eyes and said:
"Farewell, a long farewell, to life and friends!
Farewell! O earth and air and sacred sun!
Nanda, my lord, Udra, my child, I come!"
Then pale but calm, with fixed ecstatic gaze
And steady steps she mounts the funeral-pile,
Crying, "They beckon me! I come! I come!"
Then sunk as if the silver cord were loosed
As still as death upon her silent dead.
Instant the flames from the four corners leaped,
Mingling in one devouring, eager blaze.
No groan, no cry, only the crackling flames,
The wailing notes of many instruments,
And solemn chant by many voices raised,
"Perfect is she who follows thus her lord."
O dark and cruel creeds, O perfect love,
Fitter for heaven than this sad world of ours!

More than enough the prince had seen and heard.
Bowed by the grievous burdens others bore,
Feeling for others' sorrows as his own,
Tears of divinest pity filled his eyes
And deep and all-embracing love his heart.
Home he returned, no more to find its rest.

But soon a light shines in that troubled house--
A son is born to sweet Yasodhara.
Their eyes saw not, neither do ours, that sun
Whose light is wisdom and whose heat is love,
Sending through nature waves of living light,
Giving its life to everything that lives,
Which through the innocence of little ones
As through wide-open windows sends his rays
To light the darkest, warm the coldest heart.
Sweet infancy! life's solace and its rest,
Driving away the loneliness of age,
Wreathing in smiles the wrinkled brow of care,
Nectar to joyful, balm to troubled hearts,
Joyful once more is King Suddhodana;
A placid joy beams from that mother's face;
Joy lit the palace, flew from street to street,
And from the city over hill and plain;

Joy filled the prince's agitated soul--
He felt a power, from whence he could not tell,
Drawing away, he knew not where it led.
He knew the dreaded separation near,
Yet half its pain and bitterness was passed.
He need not leave his loved ones comfortless--
His loving people still would have