While children his expected coming watch,
And running cry: "The gracious Rishi comes."
All gladly gave, and soon his bowl was filled,
For he repaid their gifts with gracious thanks,
And his unbounded love, clearer than words,
Spoke to their hearts as he passed gently on.
Even stolid plowmen after him would look,
Wondering that one so stately and so grand
Should even for them have kind and gracious words,
Sometimes while passing through the sacred grove,
He paused beneath an aged banyan-tree,
Whose spreading branches drooping down took root
To grow again in other giant trunks,
An ever-widening, ever-deepening shade,
Where five, like him in manhood's early prime,
Each bound to life by all its tender ties,
High born and rich, had left their happy homes,
Their only food chance-gathered day by day,
Their only roof this spreading banyan-tree;
And there long time they earnestly communed,
Seeking to aid each other in the search
For higher life and for a clearer light.
And here, under a sacred peepul's shade,
Two Brahmans, famed for sanctity, had dwelt
For many years, all cares of life cast off,
Who by long fastings sought to make the veil
Of flesh translucent to the inner eye;
Eyes fixed intently on the nose's tip,
To lose all consciousness of outward things;
By breath suppressed to still the outer pulse,