I meant to touch and test my fate; That night I should divine, The moment I should see my love, If her true heart were mine. For if she holds me dear, I said, She'll wear my blushing rose; If not, she'll wear my cold Lamarque As white as winter's snows. My heart sank when I met her: sure I had been over bold, For on her breast my pale rose lay In virgin whiteness cold. Yet with low words she greeted me, With smiles divinely tender; Upon her cheek the red rose dawned.-- The white rose meant surrender. THE LAW OF DEATH. The song of Kilvani: fairest she In all the land of Savatthi. She had one child, as sweet and gay And dear to her as the light of day. She was so young, and he so fair, The same bright eyes and the same dark hair; To see them by the blossomy way, They seemed two children at their play. There came a death-dart from the sky, Kilvani saw her darling die. The glimmering shade his eyes invades, Out of his cheek the red bloom fades; His warm heart feels the icy chill, The round limbs shudder, and are still. And yet Kilvani held him fast Long after life's last pulse was past, As if her kisses could restore The smile gone out for evermore. But when she saw her child was dead, She scattered ashes on her head, And seized the small corpse, pale and sweet, And rushing wildly through the street, She sobbing fell at Buddha's feet. "Master, all-helpful, help me now! Here at thy feet I humbly bow; Have mercy, Buddha, help me now!" She grovelled on the marble floor, And kissed the dead child o'er and o'er. And suddenly upon the air There fell the answer to her prayer: "Bring me to-night a lotus tied With thread from a house where none has died." She rose, and laughed with thankful joy, Sure that the god would save the boy. She found a lotus by the stream; She plucked it from its noonday dream, And then from door to door she fared, To ask what house by Death was spared. Her heart grew cold to see the eyes Of all dilate with slow surprise: "Kilvani, thou hast lost thy head; Nothing can help a child that's dead. There stands not by the Ganges' side A house where none hath ever died." Thus, through the long and weary day, From every door she bore away Within her heart, and on her arm, A heavier load, a deeper harm. By gates of gold and ivory, By wattled huts of poverty, The same refrain heard poor Kilvani, THE LIVING ARE FEW, THE DEAD ARE MANY.