No, we don"t covet any never-changing treasures. We are the Renouncers.
What do you mean? Oh, dear, Poet, you will undo everything, if you talk like that. You are destroying my peace of mind. Call Sruti-bhushan. Let some one call the Pundit.
What I mean, King, is this. We are the true Renouncers, because change is our very secret. We lose, in order to find. We have no faith in the never-changing.
What do you mean?
Haven"t you noticed the detachment of the rushing river, as it runs splashing from its mountain cave? It gives itself away so swiftly, and only thus it finds itself. What is never-changing, for the river, is the desert sand, where it loses its course.
Ah, but listen, Poet--listen to those cries there outside. That is your world. How do you deal with that?
King, they are your starving people.
My people, Poet? Why do you call them that? They are the world"s people, not mine. Have I created their miseries? What can your youthful Poet Renouncers do to relieve sufferings like theirs?
Tell me that.
King, it is we alone who can truly bear those sufferings, because we are like the river that flows on in gladness, thus lightening our burden, and the burden of the world. But the hard, metalled road is fixed and never-changing. And so it makes the burden more burdensome. The heavy loads groan and creak along it, and cut deep gashes in its breast. We Poets call to every one to carry all their joys and sorrows lightly, in a rhythmic measure. Our call is the Renouncers" call.
Ah, Poet, now I don"t care a straw for Sruti-bhushan. Let the Pundit go hang. But, do you know what my trouble is now? Though I can"t, for the life of me, understand your words, the music haunts me. Now, it"s just the other way round with the Pundit.
His words are clear enough, and they obey the rules of syntax quite correctly. But the tune!--No, it"s no use telling you any further.
King, our words don"t speak, they sing.
Well, Poet, what do you want to do now?
King, I"m going to have a race through those cries, which are rising outside your gate.
What do you mean? Famine relief is for men of business. Poets oughtn"t to have anything to do with things like that.
King, business men always make their business so out of tune.
That is why we Poets hasten to tune it.
Now come, my dear Poet, do speak in plainer language.
King, they work, because they must. We work, because we are in love with life. That is why they condemn us as unpractical, and we condemn them as lifeless.
But who is right, Poet? Who wins? You, or they?
We, King, we. We always win.
But, Poet, your proof----
King, the greatest things in the world disdain proof. But if you could for a time wipe out all the poets and all their poetry from the world, then you would soon discover, by their very absence, where the men of action got their energy from, and who really supplied the life-sap to their harvest-field. It is not those who have plunged deep down into the Pundit"s _Ocean of Renunciation_, nor those who are always clinging to their possessions; it is not those who have become adepts in turning out quant.i.ties of work, nor those who are ever telling the dry beads of duty,--it is not these who win at last. But it is those who love, because they live. These truly win, for they truly surrender. They accept pain with all their strength and with all their strength they remove pain. It is they who create, because they know the secret of true joy, which is the secret of detachment.
Well then, Poet, if that be so, what do you ask me to do now?
I ask you, King, to rise up and move. That cry outside yonder is the cry of life to life. And if the life within you is not stirred, in response to that call without, then there is cause for anxiety indeed,--not because duty has been neglected, but because you are dying.
But, Poet, surely we must die, sooner or later?
No, King, that"s a lie. When we feel for certain that we are alive, then we know for certain that we shall go on living. Those who have never put life to the test, in all possible ways, these keep on crying out:
_Life is fleeting, Life is waning, Life is like a dew-drop on a lotus leaf._
But, isn"t life inconstant?
Only because its movement is unceasing. The moment you stop this movement, that moment you begin to play the drama of Death.
Poet, are you speaking the truth? Shall we really go on living?
Yes, we shall really go on living.
Then, Poet, if we are going to go on living, we must make our life worth its eternity. Is not that so?
Yes, indeed.
Ho, Guard.
Yes, Your Royal Highness.
Call the Vizier at once.
Yes, Your Royal Highness.
(_Vizier enters._)
What is Your Majesty"s pleasure?
Vizier! Why on earth have you kept me waiting so long?
I was very busy, Your Majesty.
Busy? What were you busy about?
I was dismissing the General.
Why should you dismiss the General? We have got to discuss war matters with him.
And arrangements had to be made for the state-departure of the Chinese Amba.s.sador.
What do you mean by his state-departure?
If it please Your Majesty, you did not grant him an interview. So he----
Vizier! You surprise me. Is this the way you manage state affairs? What has happened to you? Have you lost your senses?
Then, again. Sire, I was trying to find a way to pull down the Poet"s house. At first, no one would undertake it. Then, at last, all the Pundits of the Royal School of Grammar and Logic came up with their proper tools and set to work.
Vizier! Are you mad this morning? Pull down the Poet"s house?