Читать книгу Nirvana Days - Rice Cale Young - Страница 5

If I were in Japan today,

In little Japan today,

I'd watch the sampan-rowers ride

On Yokohama bay.

I'd watch the little flower-folk

Pass on the Bund, where play

Of "foreign" music fills their ears

With wonder new alway.

Or in a kuruma I'd step

And "Noge-yama!" cry,

And bare brown feet should wheel me fast

Where Noge-yama, high

Above the city and sea's vast

Uprises, with the sigh

Of pines about its festal fanes

Built free to sun and sky.

And there till dusk I'd sit and think

Of Shaka Muni, lord

Of Buddhas; or of Fudo's fire

And rope and lifted sword.

And, ere I left, a surging shade

Of clouds, a distant horde,

Should break and Fugi's cone stand clear —

With sutras overscored.

Sutras of ice and rock and snow,

Written by hands of heat

And thaw upon it, till 'twould seem

Meant for the final seat

Of the lord Buddha and his bliss —

If ever he repeat

This life where millions still are bound

Within Illusion's cheat.

Or were I in Japan today —

Perchance at Kyoto —

Down Tera-machi I would search

For charm or curio.

Up narrow stairs in sandals pure

Of soil or dust I'd go

Into a room of magic shapes —

Gods, dragons, dread Nio.

And seated on the silent mats,

With many a treasure near —

Of ivory the gods have dreamt,

And satsuma as dear,

Of bronzes whose mysterious mint

Seems not of now or here —

I'd buy and dream and dream and buy,

Lost far in Mâyâ's sphere.

Then gathering up my gains at last,

Mid "sayonaras" soft

And bows and gentle courtesies

Repeated oft and oft,

My host and I should part – "O please

The skies much weal to waft

His years," I'd think, then cross San-jo

To fair Chion-in aloft.

For set aloft and set apart,

Beyond the city's din,

Under the shade of ancient heights

Lies templed calm Chion-in.

And there the great bell's booming fills

Its gates all day, and thin

Low beating on mokugyo, by

Priests passioning for sin.

And there the sun upon its courts

And carvings, gods and graves,

Rests as no light of earth-lands known,

Like to Nirvana laves

And washes with sweet under-flow

Into the soul's far caves.

And no more shall this life seem real

To one who feels its waves.

"No more!" I'd say, then wander on

To Kiyomizu-shrine,

Which is so old antiquity's

Far self cannot divine

Its birth, but knows that Kwannon, she

Of mercy's might benign,

Has reached her thousand hands always

From it to Nippon's line.

And She should hear my many prayers,

And have my freest gifts.

And many days beside her should

I watch the crystal rifts

Of Otawa's clear waters earn

Their way, o'er rocks and drifts,

Beside the trestled temple down —

Like murmurs of sweet shrifts.

Then, when the city wearied me,

To Katsura I'd wend —

A garden hid across green miles

Of rice-lands quaintly penned.

And, by the stork-bestridden lake,

I'd walk or musing mend

My soul with lotus-memories

And hopes – without an end.

Or were I in Japan today,

Hiroshima should call

My heart – Hiroshima built round

Her ancient castle wall.

By the low flowering moat where sun

And silence ever fall

Into a swoon, I'd build again

Old days of Daimyo thrall.

Of charge and bloody countercharge,

When many a samurai

Fierce-panoplied fell at its pale,

Suppressing groan or cry;

Suppressing all but silent hates

That swept from eye to eye,

While lips smiled decorously on,

Or mocked urbane goodbye.

Then to the river I would pass

And drift upon its tide

By many a tea-house hung in bloom

Above its mirrored side.

And geisha fluttering gay before

Their guests should pause in pied

Kimono, then with laughter bright

Behind the shoji hide.

Unto an isle of Ugina's

Low port my craft should swing,

Or scarce an island seems it now

To my fair fancying,

But a shrined jut of earth up thro

The sea from which to sing

Unto the evening star of all

Night's incarnations bring.

Then backward thro the darkened streets

I'd walk: long lanterns writ

With ghostly characters should dance

Beside each door, or flit,

Thin paper spirits, to and fro

And mow the wind, when it

Demanded of them reverence

And passed with twirl or twit.

What music, too, of samisen

And koto I should hear!

Tinkle on weirder tinkle thro

The strangely wistful ear

What shadows on the shoji-door

Of my dim soul should veer

All night in sleep, and haunt the light

Of many a coming year!

Or were I in Japan today,

From Ujina I'd sail

For mountain-isled Migajima

Upon the distance, frail

As the mirage, to Amida,

Of this world's transient tale,

Where he sits clothed in boundless light

And sees it vainly ail.

Up to the great sea-torii,

Its temple-gate, I'd wind,

There furl my sail beneath its beam;

And soon my soul should find

What it shall never, tho it sift

The world elsewhere, and blind

Itself at last with sight of all

Earth's blisses to mankind.

"Migajima! Migajima!"

How would enchantment chant

The syllables within me, till

Desire should cease and pant

Of passion press no more my will —

But let charmed peace supplant

All thought of birth and death and birth —

Yea, karma turn askant.

For on Migajima none may

Give birth and none may die —

Since birth and death are equal sins

Unto the wise. So I

Should muse all day where the sea spills

Its murmur softly by

The still stone lanterns all arow

Under the deathless sky.

And under cryptomeria-tree

And camphor-tree and pine,

And tall pagoda, rising roof

On roof into the shine

Of the pure air – red roof on roof,

With memories in each line

Of far Confucian China where

They first were held divine.

And o'er Migajima the moon

Should rise for me again.

So magical its glow, I dare

Think of it only when

My heart is strong to shun the snare

Of witcheries that men

May lose their souls in evermore,

Nor, after, care nor ken.

Yes, were I in Japan today

These things I'd do, and more.

For Ise gleams in royal groves,

And Nara with its lore,

And Nikko hid in mountains – where

The Shogun, great of yore,

Built timeless tombs whose glory glooms

Funereally o'er.

These things I'd do! But last of all,

On Kamakura's lea,

I'd seek Daibutsu's face of calm

And still the final sea

Of all the West within me – from

Its fret and fever free

My spirit – into patience, peace,

And passion's mastery.