Four higher roadways be. Only those feet May tread them which have done with earthly things-- Right Purity, Right Thought, Right Loneliness, Right Rapture. Spread no wings For sunward flight, thou soul with unplumed vans Sweet is the lower air and safe, and known The homely levels: only strong ones leave The nest each makes his own. Dear is the love, I know, of Wife and Child; Pleasant the friends and pastimes of your years; Fruitful of good Life's gentle charities; False, though firm-set, its fears. Live--ye who must--such lives as live on these; Make golden stair-ways of your weakness; rise By daily sojourn with those phantasies To lovelier verities. So shall ye pass to clearer heights and find Easier ascents and lighter loads of sins, And larger will to burst the bonds of sense, Entering the Path. Who wins To such commencement hath the First Stage touched; He knows the Noble Truths, the Eightfold Road; By few or many steps such shall attain NIRVANA's blest abode. Who standeth at the Second Stage, made free From doubts, delusions, and the inward strife, Lord of all lusts, quit of the priests and books, Shall live but one more life. Yet onward lies the Third Stage: purged and pure Hath grown the stately spirit here, hath risen To love all living things in perfect peace. His life at end, life's prison Is broken. Nay, there are who surely pass Living and visible to utmost goal By Fourth Stage of the Holy ones--the Buddhs-- And they of stainless soul. Lo! like fierce foes slain by some warrior, Ten sins along these Stages lie in dust, The Love of Self, False Faith, and Doubt are three, Two more, Hatred and Lust. Who of these Five is conqueror hath trod Three stages out of Four: yet there abide The Love of Life on earth, Desire for Heaven, Self-Praise, Error, and Pride. As one who stands on yonder snowy horn Having nought o'er him but the boundless blue, So, these sins being slain, the man is come NIRVANA's verge unto. Him the Gods envy from their lower seats; Him the Three Worlds in ruin should not shake; All life is lived for him, all deaths are dead; Karma will no more make New houses. Seeking nothing, he gains all; Foregoing self, the Universe grows "I": If any teach NIRVANA is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach NIRVANA is to live, Say unto such they err; not knowing this, Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps, Nor lifeless, timeless bliss.