PREFACE.

THE FOLLOWING POEM is an attempt at a reasonable narrative of Buddha and Buddhism, looking at these subjects of course from a poetical standpoint. Gaútama Buddha is at present hardly known to any but oriental scholars and literary men. The extravagant absurdities and contemptible puerilities of Buddhist sacred literature have effectually scared all but the most determined from an investigation of this subject; and as a natural consequence, the Founder of a religion, which, after more than 2,000 years, is still professed by 455,000,000 of human beings,' is ignored, misrepresented, and foolishly despised. The great Ascetic deserves to be better known. Both the attractive beauty of his life, and the tremendous influence of his creed, demand for him more attention than either thoughtful persons or even our wise men have hitherto accorded him. As yet

we have had little but reviews, essays, and encyclopædical articles. The literature of Buddhism being most voluminous, the materials for an extended biography are abundant; but hitherto no oriental scholar has heroically girded himself to the herculean task of writing such a work, and thus endeavouring to separate the real from the legendary and mythical. The poem is based upon a theory; but nothing short of a full conviction of the soundness of that theory would have led the author to represent Gaútama as a wilful deceiver, beguiling men to virtue; and thus by impeaching his moral character, to lessen him in men's eyes. But if his moral character is lowered by this assumption, as undoubtedly it is, it must be allowed, as a slightly compensating fact, that his intellectual status is considerably raised by it. The reflections scattered through this poem, but more especially the last canto, will suffice to show that this is no attempt at an undue exaltation of Buddha, between whom and Christ there is in many particulars so striking a resemblance; nor an indiscriminate laudation of that system which is so like Christianity in its ethics, but so unlike to it in its doctrines.

LEAMINGTON: December, 1871.

I AM no chronicler of deeds of blood

Wrought by the hands of those who, like a flood,
Swept from the Tatar plains, led by the man
Who made the Orient quake-great Gengis Khan ;
Or him who filled the frighted East with bones,
And piled his pyramids of skulls: no groans
Of Moslem-slaughtered hosts shall make men curse
Such ruthless tyrants, as they read my verse.

II

I sing not of great heroes who have warr'd,
And reapt the harvest of the bitter sword:
And yet I mean to tell a wondrous tale
Of Asian conquest; ye shall surely fail
To count the captives: they are as the sands
Of sea-shores or of deserts, in the lands
Of gorgeous temples and of squalid homes,
And ruins, great as Egypt's or as Rome's.

B

III

Some men are mighty in their little day,
And some are mighty having passed away;
And some are mighty but in sowing seed:
Great in his life, the founder of a creed
Is greater far in death; for then each one
Will magnify the deeds that he has done,
Esteem all places sacred where he trod,
And look upon him as men look on God.

IV

Of such an one I tell what will not fail
To sound as marvellous as an Eastern tale,
Yet very pitiful; and that above

The death of heroes, or the woes of love,
The moans of dying children, or the fall

Of some beleaguered city, when the wall
Becomes unmanned thro' famine; or the hell
Of beaten armies that have battled well.

V

And yet I mean to tell a tale of one

Who prospered as none other yet has done, Whose fame is not yet dead, nor shall decay Until the Pyramids be worn away;

For still beneath the calm of orient skies His name is worshipt, and his temples rise: Still on his words do many nations rest, And deem him of all beings first and best.

VI

He was no Titan, tho' with gods he strove,
Nor born like Pallas from the head of Jove;
Yet did his coming set the world at strife:
No blood-stained conqueror, prodigal of life,
And yet a conqueror, and one greater than
The son of Philip, or fierce Gengis Khan :
No brain-bred hero, red with dragon's gore ;
No wise magician skilled in magic lore.

VII

The glory of his reign has not yet ceast
In that great empire in the dreaming East,
Which, like strong lions ravenous for prey,
The merchants of young Tarshish bore away.
Thou, Ganges, knowest him! O worshipt flood,
How blest is he that in thy sacred mud
At his last hour can lay him down to die,
And watch the current and his life go by!

VIII

In far-off lands may still be seen his vast
And rock-hewn temples, made in times long past;
Now void and silent, save that thro' their halls
The ban-dog wanders, and the serpent crawls,
Safe from the bruising heel. These once were dim
With incense-smoke, and loud with prayer and hymn;
And their cool floors, where now the lizards meet,
Once warmed beneath the tread of human feet.