Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it
blossom.
Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them
in the dust.
But no colours appear, and no perfume.
Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into a blossom.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.
He gives it a glance, and the life-sap stirs through its veins.
At his breath the flower spreads its wings and flutters in the
wind.
Colours flush out like heart-longings, the perfume betrays a
sweet secret.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.
XIX
Sud?s, the gardener, plucked from his tank the last lotus left by
the ravage of winter and went to sell it to the king at the
palace gate.
There he met a traveller who said to him, "Ask your price for the
last lotus, --I shall offer it to Lord Buddha."
Sud?s said, "If you pay one golden
m?sh? 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 m?sh? 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.
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