downwards, Ebbing its life away. Golden clouds are circling Like angels and archangels About the eye of the sun. Flaming sunset: Mad conflagrations Licking at the earth, The blue-black walls of space, Iron mountains vast on the horizon. O golden spear that dartled through the darkness! The evening star sparkled and threw us its message. III In the bosom of the desert I will lie at the last. Not the grey desert of sand But the golden desert of great wild grasses, This shall receive my soul. In the high plateaus, The wind will be like a flute-note calling me Day after day. Short bursts of surf, The wind climbs up and stops in the grass; And the golden petals Brush drowsily over my face. White butterfly that flutters across my sea of golden blossom; Tell me, what are you looking for, lone white butterfly? I am seeking for a strange lonely white flower; Its petals are honeyless; and in the wind it is still. White butterfly, come, fold your wings over my heart: I am the white blossom, the white dead blossom for you. In the golden bosom of the prairie, I am lying at the last Like a pool that is stilled. But they who shared with me my life's adventure, Who tossed their ducats like dandelions into the sunlight, I know that somewhere they with songs are building, Golden towers more beautiful than my own. IV I only know in the midnight, Something will be born of me.  The village drowses in the darkness, But aloft in the temple There is a thud of gongs and a shuffle of hollow voices In the dark corridors. The golden temple That kindled like a rose against the sunset, Now is dark and silent, One light glimmers from its façade. In the inner shrine One stiff golden curtain Hangs from floor to roof. Black, impassive, helmeted In felt like stiff black warriors, The lamas slowly gather, Kneeling in a row. The hollow brazen trumpets Blare and snore. The drums, festooned with skulls, Roar. Suddenly with a clash of gongs, And a squeal from ear-splitting bugles, The golden veil is rent. Cavernous blue darkness! And within it Smiling, Naked, Rose-empurpled, Rippling with crimson-violet light, behold the god. Hail, great jewel in the lotus blossom! Rosy flame that kindling Flashes on the emptiness Or Nirvana's sea! Before the shrine, as before, Once more the golden curtain, And the black shapes vanish. Aloft in the hollow temple There is a shuffle of feet and a sound of hollow voices, Soon lost. The village drowses in the darkness: Like a vast black cube The temple looms above it, There is no light on its façade. Suddenly, all the golden temple Kindles like a rose against the dawn. I only know in the midnight Something has been born of me. 

of passage.

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