---

Robert Laurence Binyon - Asoka
Work rating: Low

I
 Gentle as fine rain falling from the night,
 The first beams from the Indian moon at full
 Steal through the boughs, and brighter and more bright
 Glide like a breath, a fragrance visible.
 Asoka round him sees
 The gloom ebb into glories half--espied
 Of glimmering bowers through wavering traceries:
 Pale as a rose by magical degrees
 Opening, the air breaks into beauty wide,
 And yields a mystic sweet;
 And shapes of leaves shadow the pathway side
 Around Asoka`s feet.

 O happy prince! From his own court he steals;
 Weary of words is he, weary of throngs.
 How this wide ecstasy of stillness heals
 His heart of flatteries and the tale of wrongs!
 Unseen he climbs the hill,
 Unheard he brushes with his cloak the dew,
 While the young moonbeams every hollow fill
 With hovering flowers, so gradual and so still
 As if a joy brimmed where that radiance grew,
 Discovering pale gold
 Of spikenard balls and champak buds that new
 Upon the air unfold.

 He gains the ridge. Wide open rolls the night!
 Airs from an infinite horizon blow
 Down holy Ganges, floating vast and bright
 Through old Magadha`s forests. Far below
 He hears the cool wave fret
 On rocky islands; soft as moths asleep
 Come moonlit sails; there on a parapet
 Of ruined marble, where the moss gleams wet
 And from black cedars a lone peacock cries,
 Uncloaking rests Asoka, bathing deep
 In silence, and his eyes
 Of his own realm the wondrous prospect reap;
 At last aloud he sighs.


II
 ``How ennobling it is to taste
 Of the breath of a living power!
 The shepherd boy on the waste
 Whose converse, hour by hour,
 Is alone with the stars and the sun,
 His days are glorified!
 And the steersman floating on
 Down this great Ganges tide,
 He is blest to be companion of the might
 Of waters and unwearied winds that run
 With him, by day, by night:
 He knows not whence they come, but they his path provide.

 ``But O more noble far
 From the heart of power to proceed
 As the beam flows forth from the star,
 As the flower unfolds on the reed.
 It is not we that are strong
 But the cause, the divine desire,
 The longing wherewith we long.
 O flame far--springing from the eternal fire,
 Feed, feed upon my heart till thou consume
 These bonds that do me wrong
 Of time and chance and doom,
 And I into thy radiance grow and glow entire!

 ``For he who his own strength trusts,
 And by violence hungers to tame
 Men and the earth to his lusts,
 Though mighty, he falls in shame;
 As a great fell tiger, whose sound
 The small beasts quake to hear,
 When he stretches his throat to the shuddering ground
 And roars for blood; yet a trembling deer
 Brings him at last to his end.
 In a winter torrent falls his murderous bound!
 His raging claws the unheeding waters rend;
 Down crags they toss him sheer,
 With sheep ignobly drowned,
 And his fierce heart is burst with fury of its fear.


III
 ``Not so ye deal,
 Immortal Powers, with him
 Who in his weak hour hath made haste to kneel
 Where your divine springs out of mystery brim,
 And carries thence through the world`s uproar rude
 A clear--eyed fortitude;
 As the poor diver on the Arabian strand
 From the scorched rocky ledges plunging deep,
 Glides down the rough dark brine with questing hand
 Until he feels upleap
 Founts of fresh water, and his goatskin swells
 And bears him upward on those buoyant wells
 Back with a cool boon for his thirsting land.

 ``I also thirst,
 O living springs, for you:
 Would that I might drink now, as when at first
 Life shone about me glorious and all true,
 And I abounded in your strength indeed,
 Which now I sorely need.
 You have not failed, `tis I! Yet this abhorred
 Necessity to hate and to despise--
 `Twas not for this my youthful longing soared,
 Not thus would I grow wise!
 Keep my heart tender still, that still is set
 To love without foreboding or regret,
 Even as this tender moonlight is outpoured.

 ``Now now, even now,
 Sleep doth the sad world take
 To peace it knows not. Radiant Sleep, wilt thou
 Unveil thy wonder for me too, who wake?
 O my soul melts into immensity,
 And yet `tis I, `tis I!
 A wave upon a silent ocean, thrilled
 Up from its deepest deeps without a sound,
 Without a shore to break on, or a bound,
 Until the world be filled.
 O mystery of peace, O more profound
 Than pain or joy, upbuoy me on thy power!
 Stay, stay, adorèd hour,
 I am lost, I am found again:
 My soul is as a fountain springing in the rain.``

 --Long, long upon that cedarn--shadowed height
 Musing, Asoka mingled with the night.
 At last the moon sank o`er the forest wide.
 Within his soul those fountains welled no more,
 Yet breathed a balm still, fresh as fallen dew:
 The mist coiled upward over Ganges shore;
 And he arose and sighed,
 And gathered his cloak round him, and anew
 Threaded the deep woods to his palace door.
Source
The script ran 0.002 seconds.