Maya

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Title:     Maya
Author: Cale Young Rice [More Titles by Rice]

(HIROSHIMA, JAPAN, 1905)

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

[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: Maya

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