277. Indian Meditation

WHERE shall this self at last find happiness?

O Soul, only in nothingness.

Does not the Earth suffice to its own needs?

And what am I but one of the Earth’s weeds?

All things have been and all things shall go on

Before me and when I am gone;

This self that cries out for eternity

Is what shall pass in me:

The tree remains, the leaf falls from the tree.

I would be as the leaf, I would be lost

In the identity and death of frost,

Rather than draw the sap of the tree’s strength

And for the tree’s sake be cast off at length.

To be is homage unto being; cease

To be, and be at peace,

If it be peace for self to have forgot

Even that it is not.