The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-04-15
4 CORRECT COPY OF
A REMARKABLE POEM,
MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU,
PRINCE AND SKEPTIC.-

PRINCE AND SKEPTIC-
All the world over. 1 wonder, in lands
that I never had trod.
Are the people eternally seeking fol
the signs and steps of God?
Westward across the ocean, and north
ward ayont the snow,
Do they all stand gazing, as ever. and
what do the wisest know?
Here. in this mystical India the deities
hover and swarm
Like the wild bees heard in the tree
tops, OR the gusts of a gathering
storm;
In the air men hear their voices, their
feet on the rocks are seen,
Yet we all say, whence is the mes
sage, and what may the wonders
mean?"
A million shrines stand open, and ever
the censor swings,
AS they to a mystic symbol, or the
figures of ancient kings;
And the incense rises ever, and rises
the endless cry
OF those who are heavy laden, and OF
towards, 10th to die
For the Destiny drives US together.
like deer in a pass of the hills.
Above is the sky, and around US, the
sound and the shot that kills;
Pushed by a Power we see not, and
struck by hand unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and
press our lips to stone.
The trees wave shadowy answer, and
the rock frowns hollow and grim,
And the form and the nod of the demon
are caught in the twilight dim;
And we look to the sunlight falling
afar on the mountain crest,
Is there never a path runs upward to a
refuge there and rest?
The path, ah! who has shown it. and
which is the faithful guide?
The haven. all who has known it? for
steep is the mountain side,
For ever the shot strikes surely and
ever the wasted breath
OF the praying multitude rises, whose
answer is only death.
Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the
first of an ancient name,
Chiefs who were slain on the war-feld,
and women who died in flame;
They are gods. these kings of the fore
time. they are spirits who guard
our race
Ever I watch and worship; they sit
with a marble face.
And the myriad idols around me. and
the legion of muttering priests,
The revels and rites unholy, the dark
unspeaka BILE feasts,
What have they wrung from the ST.
lence? hath even whisper come
OF the secret-Whence and Whittier?
Alas for the gods are dumb.
Shall 1 list to the word Of the En-
glish. who come from the utter
most sea?
1.-The secret hath been told to you and
what is your message to me?''
1t is nought but the underworld story
how the earth and the heavens
began.
How the gods are glad and angry, and
Deity once was man.
l had thought. "Perchance in the cities
where the rulers of India dwell.
Whose orders flash from the far land.
who girdle the earth with a spell.
They have fathomed the depths we
float on, or measured the unknown
MAIN
Sadly they turn from the venture, and
say that the quest is vain.
Is life. then dream and delusion, and
where shall the dreamer awake?
Is the world seen like shadows on
water. and what if the mirror
break?
Shall it pass. as a camp that is struck,
as tent that is gathered and gone
From the sands that We're lamp-lit at
eve. and at morning are level and
lone?
S there nought in the heavens above, |
whence the hail and the levin are |
hurled
But the wind that is swept around US |
by the rush of the rolling world?
The wind that shall scatter my ashes, |
and bear me to silence and sleep
With the dirge, and the sounds of
lamenting, and voices of women |
who weep.
A c. LYALL.