Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
Buddha at Kamakura
“And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura”
O
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when “the heathen” pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat,
The Buddha of Kamakura.
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura,
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
That worship at Kamakura—
That flit beneath the Master’s eyes.
He is beyond the Mysteries
But loves them at Kamakura.
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East
About him at Kamakura.
Of birth as fish or beast or bird,
While yet in lives the Master stirred,
The warm wind brings Kamakura.
A-flower ’neath her golden htee
The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly
From Burmah to Kamakura,
The thunder of Thibetan drums,
And droned—“Om mane padme hums”—
A world’s-width from Kamakura.
Buddh-Gaya’s ruins pit the hill,
And beef-fed zealots threaten ill
To Buddha and Kamakura.
A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,
So much, and scarce so much, ye hold
The meaning of Kamakura?
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
No nearer than Kamakura?