Nanda, my lord, Udra, my child, I come!"
Then pale but calm, with fixed ecstatic gaze
And steady steps she mounts the funeral-pile,
Crying, "They beckon me! I come! I come!"
Then sunk as if the silver cord were loosed
As still as death upon her silent dead.
Instant the flames from the four corners leaped,
Mingling in one devouring, eager blaze.
No groan, no cry, only the crackling flames,
The wailing notes of many instruments,
And solemn chant by many voices raised,
"Perfect is she who follows thus her lord."
O dark and cruel creeds, O perfect love,
Fitter for heaven than this sad world of ours!

More than enough the prince had seen and heard.
Bowed by the grievous burdens others bore,
Feeling for others' sorrows as his own,
Tears of divinest pity filled his eyes
And deep and all-embracing love his heart.
Home he returned, no more to find its rest.

But soon a light shines in that troubled house--
A son is born to sweet Yasodhara.
Their eyes saw not, neither do ours, that sun
Whose light is wisdom and whose heat is love,
Sending through nature waves of living light,
Giving its life to everything that lives,
Which through the innocence of little ones
As through wide-open windows sends his rays