When moonlight on the face
Of the great Buddha falls
As he sits in Nirvana
On the shores of Kamakura,
When the pines about him place
Soft shadows at his feet
Like offerings of penitence and tears,
I hear in the grace
Of the wind's low susurra
A voice that calls me still
To my home within the West,
But I've lingered overlong
In the East's strange arcana
And no more is there desire within my breast.
I left it when a boy,
That far home and, alas,
‘ Twas so fair that my dreaming
Earth had fairer was a madness.
I left it for the joy
Of wandering the world,
And heathen-hearted lands have I beheld!
But when at last cloy
Of delight brought sadness
Like lotus to my veins,
And forgetfulness seemed fate,
I had fared unto this shrine
And the moon as now was beaming,
And here have I awaited — and await.
But not for any gift
Of its god, or any grace
That in living or in dying
Men in text or sutra sigh for.
And not for any shrift
Nirvana has, or skies
Where Paradise imperishably smiles.
But only for the sift
Of the wind, that seems to die for
My soul's enduring peace
In the dwelling of the Tomb.
And only for the drift
Of the moon that comes denying
Eternity to everything but Doom.