The Buddha At Kamakura

The Buddha at Kamakura
Rudyard Kipling
O ye who tread the Narrow Way

By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,

Be gentle when the 'heathen' pray

To Buddha at Kamakura!

To him the Way, the Law, apart,

Whom Maya held beneath her heart,

Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat,

The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though he neither burns nor sees,

Nor hears ye thank your Deities,

Ye have not sinned with such as these,

His children at Kamakura.

Yet spare us still the Western joke

When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke

The little sins of little folk

That worship at Kamakura

The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies

That flit beneath the Master's eyes.

He is beyond the Mysteries

But loves them at Kamakura.

And whoso will, from Pride released,

Contemning neither creed nor priest,

May feel the Soul of all the East

About him at Kamakura.

Yea, every tale Ananda heard,

Of birth as fish or beast or bird,

While yet in lives the Master stirred,

The warm wind brings Kamakura.

Till drowsy eyelids seem to see

A flower ‘neath her golden htee

The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly

From Burmah to Kamakura,

And down the loaded air there comes

The thunder of Thibetan drums,

And droned - ‘Om mane padme hums’ -

A world’s -width from Kamakura.

Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,

Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill,

And beef-fed zealots threaten ill

To Buddha and Kamakura.

A tourist-show, a legend told,

A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,

So much, and scarce so much, ye hold

The meaning of Kamakura?

But when the morning prayer is prayed,

Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,

Is God in human image made

No nearer than Kamakura?