There he met a traveller who said to him, “Ask your price for the last lotus, -I shall offer it to Lord Buddha.”
Sudas said, “If you pay one golden masha it will be yours.”
The traveller paid it.
At that moment the king came out and he wished to buy the flower, for he was on his way to see Lord Buddha, and he thought, “It would be a fine thing to lay at his feet the lotus that bloomed in winter.”
When the gardener said he had been offered a golden masha the king offered him ten, but the traveller doubled the price.
The gardener, being greedy, imagined a greater gain from him for whose sake they were bidding. He bowed and said,“I cannot sell this lotus.”
In the hushed shade of the mango grove beyond the city wall Sudas stood before Lord Buddha, on whose lips sat the silence of love and whose eyes beamed peace like the morning star of thedew-washed autumn.
Sudas looked in his face and put the lotus at his feet and bowed his head to the dust.
Buddha smiled and asked, “What is your wish, my son?”
Sudas cried, “The least touch of your feet.”
Make me thy poet, O Night, veiled Night!
There are some who have sat speechless for ages in thy shadow; let me utter their songs.
Take me up on thy chariot without wheels, running noiselessly from world to world, thou queen in the palace of time, thou darkly beautiful!
Many a questioning mind has stealthily entered thy courtyard and roamed through thy lampless house seeking for answers.
From many a heart, pierced with the arrow of joy from the hands of the Unknown, have burst forth glad chants, shaking the darkness to its foundation.
Those wakeful souls gaze in the starlight in wonder at the treasure they have suddenly found.
Make me their poet, O Night, the poet of thy fathomless silence.
I will meet one day the Life within me, the joy that hides in my life, though the days perplex my path with their idle dust.
I have known it in glimpses, and its fitful breath has come upon me, making my thoughts fragrant for a while.
I will meet one day the Joy without me that dwells behind the screen of light-and will stand in the overflowing solitude where all things are seen as by their creator.