Be laid upon this goat, to sink from sight,
Drunk by the earth with his hot spouting blood,
Or on this altar with his flesh be burned."
And all the Brahman choir responsive cried:
"Long live the king! now let the victim die!"
But Buddha said: "Let him not strike, O king!
For how can God, being good, delight in blood?
And how can blood wash out the stains of sin,
And change the fixed eternal law of life
That good from good, evil from evil flows?"
This said, he stooped and loosed the panting goat,
None staying him, so great his presence was.
And then with loving tenderness he taught
How sin works out its own sure punishment;
How like corroding rust and eating moth
It wastes the very substance of the soul;
Like poisoned blood it surely, drop by drop,
Pollutes the very fountain of the life;
Like deadly drug it changes into stone
The living fibres of a loving heart;
Like fell disease, it breeds within the veins
The living agents of a living death;
And as in gardens overgrown with weeds,
Nothing but patient labor, day by day,
Uprooting cherished evils one by one,
Watering its soil with penitential tears,
Can fit the soul to grow that precious seed,
Which taking root, spreads out a grateful shade
Where gentle thoughts like singing birds may lodge,
Where pure desires like fragrant flowers may bloom,