e."
So when the sun was high His Majesty, again followed by the Dainagon,
went through the forest swiftly, and like a man that sees his goal,
and when they reached the place where the maiden went by, His Majesty
straitly commanded the Dainagon that he should draw apart, and leave him
to speak with the maiden; yet that he should watch what befell.
So the Dainagon watched, and again he saw her come, very poorly clad,
and with bare feet that shrank from the snow in her grass sandals, bowed
beneath a heavy load of wood upon her shoulders, and her face flat and
homely like a girl of the people, and her eyes blind and shut.
And as she came she sang this.
"The Eternal way lies before him,
The way that is made manifest in the Wise.
The Heart that loves reveals itself to man.
For now he draws nigh to the Source.
The night advances fast,
And lo! the moon shines bright."
And to the Dainagon it seemed a harsh crying nor could he distinguish
any words at all.
But what His Majesty beheld was this. The evening had come on and the
moon was rising. The snow had gone. It was the full glory of spring, and
the flowers sprang thick as stars upon the grass, and among them lotos
flowers, great as the wheel of a chariot, white and shining with
the luminance of the pearl, and upon each one of these was seated an
incarnate Holiness, looking upward with joined hands. In the trees were
the voices of the mystic Birds that are the utterance of the Blessed
One, proclaiming in harmony the Five Virtues, The Five Powers, the Seven
Steps ascending to perfect Illumination, the Noble Eightfold Path, and
all the Law. And, bearing, in the heart of the Son of Heaven awoke the
Three Remembrances--the Remembrance of Him who is Blessed, Remembrance
of the Law, and Remembrance of the Communion of the Assembly.
So, looking upward to the heavens, he beheld the Infinite Buddha,
high and lifted up in a great raying glory. About Him were the exalted
Bodhisattwas, the mighty Disciples, great Arhats all, and all the
countless Angelhood. And these rose high into the infinite until they
could be seen but as a point of fire against the moon. With this golden
multitude beyond all numbering was He.
Then, as His Majesty had seen in the dream of the night, the
wood-cutter's daughter, moving through the flowers like one blind that
gropes his way, advanced before the Blessed Feet, and uplifting her
hands, did adoration, and her face he c
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