Against the phantom gold of failing skies
I see the ghost of Fujiyama rise
And think of the innumerable eyes
That have beheld its vision sunset-crowned.
The peasant in his field of rice or tea,
The prince in gardens dreaming by the sea,
The priest to whom the sêmi in the tree
Was but some shrilling soul's incarnate sound.
And as I think upon them, lo, the trance
Of backward time and distant circumstance,
Of Karma's all-remembering necromance,
Lies suddenly before my boundless sight.
It is as if, a moment, Buddhahood
Were given to me; as if understood
At last were vague Nirvana's vaguer good;
As if time were dissolved in living light.