Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, also commonly refered to as Buddha ‘The Awakened One’. This is one of his songs on the cycle of life.
Passage
A pilgrim through eternity, In countless births have I been born,
And toiled the Architect to see Who builds my soul’s live house in scorn.
O painful is the road of birth ! By which, from house to house made over,
Each house displays the kind and worth
Of the desires I loved before.
Dread Architect! I now have seen Thy face, and seized thy precept’s law;
Of all the houses which have been,
Not one again my soul can draw.
Thy rafters crushed, thy ridge-pole too, Thy work, O Builder ! now is over;
My spirit feels Nirvana true, And I shall transmigrate no more.
William Rounseville Alger. Poetry of the Orient. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.
