Round and round where the idols gaze

So pitiless on his pained distress

He passes on,

Pale-eyed and wan—

A pariah like the dogs behind him.

Oh, what sin in a life begot

Thousands of lives ago did he sin

That he is now by all forgot,

Even by Lord Gautama?

Oh, what sin, that the lowest shun

His very name as a thing of shame—

A sound to taint

The winds that faint

From the high bells that hear it uttered!

Midnight comes and the hours of morn,

Tapers die and the flowers all

From the most fêted altars: lorn

And desolate is their odour.

[Pg 24]

Midnight goes, but he watches still

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