All night long the pagoda slave Hears the wind-bells high in the air Tinkle with low sweet tongue and grave In praise of Lord Gautama.
All night long where the lone spire sends Its golden height to the starry light He hears their tune And watches the moon
And fears he shall never reach Nirvana. Round and round by a hundred shrines Glittering at the great Shwe's base Falls the sound of his feet mid lines
Droned from the sacred Wisdom. Round and round where the idols gaze So pitiless on his pained distress He passes on,
Pale-eyed and wan — A pariah like the dogs behind him. Oh, what sin in a life begot Thousands of lives ago did he sin
That he is now by all forgot, Even by Lord Gautama? Oh, what sin, that the lowest shun His very name as a thing of shame —
A sound to taint The winds that faint From the high bells that hear it uttered! Midnight comes and the hours of morn,
Tapers die and the flowers all From the most fêted altars: lorn And desolate is their odour. Midnight goes, but he watches still
By each cold spire the moon sets fire, By every palm Whose silvery calm Pillar and jewelled porch pray under.
Is it dawn that is breaking?... No, Only a star that falls in the sea, Only a wind-bell's louder flow Of praise to Lord Gautama.
Faithless dawn! with illusive feet It comes too late to ease his fate. He sinks asleep A helpless heap,
Tho for it he may never reach Nirvana.
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