Near and Far (Blunden)/The Quick and the Dead
The Quick and the Dead
Once we three in Nara walkedWhere pomp and fame look through the leaves;With sabred shades we walked and talkedBy lacquered gates and bow-like eaves,By pools where carp doze through their greenEternities, to lonelier shrinesWhere mossy courtyards lie sereneBeneath some peasant-planted pines.
Less of that giant, surly bellWhose black voice warned us at all hoursMy late remembrance likes to tell,Less of the Buddha as he loutsWith thick curled skull and dead man's eye,Of old wives' faithful groan of prayer,Of fire-robed ritual trooping by,Than the plain joy, three friends walked there.