Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Salsette
By Nicholas Michell (1807–1880)H
The jackal’s cry, the tiger’s hollow roar;
Where dark-eyed Nautch-girls danced in beauty’s pride,
The toad spits venom now, and serpents glide;
The marble steps are clothed with waving grass,
No sun-bright streams purl music as ye pass;
Yon altars own no more the prophet’s sway;
The Eden that once bloomed hath passed away.
Yet here, mid scenes luxuriant as sublime,
Was Buddha worshipped, pride of elder time,
Classed with those spirits centuries only bring,
To raise their kind, and clear Truth’s darkening spring;
Blessed sage of Ind! but Persecution’s brand
His followers smote,—they fled their native land;
Their creed, their rites the hapless exiles bore
To many a foreign wild and mountain shore;
And fast their doctrines spread,—to Buddha now,
Like leaves in autumn, countless millions bow.