Gentle, but so beyond them. Each maid took With down-dropped lids her gift, afraid to gaze; And if the people hailed some lovelier one Beyond her rivals worthy royal smiles, She stood like a scared antelope to touch The gracious hand, then fled to join her mates Trembling at favour, so divine he seemed, So high and saint-like and above her world. Thus filed they, one bright maid after another, The city's flowers, and all this beauteous march Was ending and the prizes spent, when last Came young Yasodhara, and they that stood Nearest Siddartha saw the princely boy Start, as the radiant girl approached. A form Of heavenly mould; a gait like Parvati's; the Eyes like a hind's in love-time, face so fair Words cannot paint its spell; and she alone Gazed full-folding her palms across her breasts On the boy's gaze, her stately neck unbent. "Is there a gift for me?" she asked, and smiled. "The gifts are gone," the Prince replied, "yet take This for amends, dear sister, of whose grace Our happy city boasts;" therewith he loosed The emerald necklet from his throat, and clasped Its green beads round her dark and silk-soft waist; And their eyes mixed, and from the look sprang love. Long after--when enlightenment was full-- Lord Buddha--being prayed why thus his heart Took fire at first glance of the Sakya girl, Answered, "We were not strangers, as to us And all it seemed; in ages long gone by A hunter's son, playing with forest girls By Yamun's spring, where Nandadevi stands, Sate umpire while they raced beneath the firs Like hares at eve that run their playful rings; One with flower-stars crowned he, one with long plumes Plucked from eyed pheasant and the junglecock, One with fir-apples; but who ran the last Came first for him, and unto her the boy Gave a tame fawn and his heart's love beside. And in the wood they lived many glad years, And in the wood they undivided died. Lo! as hid seed shoots after rainless years, So good and evil, pains and pleasures, hates And loves, and all dead deeds, come forth again Bearing bright leaves or dark, sweet fruit or sour. Thus I was he and she Yasodhara; And while the wheel of birth and death turns round, That which hath been must be between us two." But they who watched the Prince at prize-giving Saw and heard all, and told the careful King How sate Sidddrtha heedless till there passed Great Suprabuddha's child, Yasodhara; And how--at sudden sight of her--he changed, And how she gazed on him and he on her, And of the jewel-gift, and what beside Passed in their speaking glance.