Life is a weary road at best."

But Buddha, full of pity, passing said:
"Alas, poor soul! flitting a little while
Like painted butterflies before the lamp
That soon will burn your wings; like silly doves,
Calling the cruel kite to seize and kill;
Displaying lights to be the robber's guide;
Enticing men to wrong, who soon despise.
Ah! poor, perverted, cold and cruel world!
Delights of love become the lures of lust,
The joys of heaven changed into fires of hell."


[1]I am aware there are many who think that Buddha did not believe in
prayer, which Arnold puts into his own mouth in these words, which
sound like the clanking of chains in a prison-vault:

"Pray not! the darkness will not brighten! Ask
Nought from Silence, for it cannot speak!"

Buddha did teach that mere prayers without any effort to overcome our
evils is of no more use than for a merchant to pray the farther bank of
a swollen stream to come to him without seeking any means to cross,
which merely differs in words from the declaration of St. James that
faith without works is dead; but if he ever taught that the earnest
yearning of a soul for help, which is the essence of prayer, is no aid
in the struggle for a higher life, then my whole reading has been at
fault, and the whole Buddhist worship has been a departure from the
teachings of its founder.