XXXIII
WHEN I thought I would mould you, an image from my life for men to worship, I brought my dust and desires and all my coloured delusions and dreams.
When I asked you to mould with my life an image from your heart for you to love, you brought your fire and force, and truth, loveliness and peace.
LIII
I HAVE kissed this world with my eyes and my limbs; I have wrapt it within my heart in numberless folds; I have flooded its days and nights with thoughts till the world and my life have grown one,--and I love my life because I love the light of the sky so enwoven with me.
If to leave this world be as real as to love it--then there must be a meaning in the meeting and the parting of life.
If that love were deceived in death, then the canker of this deceit would eat into all things, and the stars would shrivel and grow black.
LIX
WHEN the weariness of the road is upon me, and the thirst of the sultry day; when the ghostly hours of the dusk throw their shadows across my life, then I cry not for your voice only, my friend, but for your touch.
There is an anguish in my heart for the burden of its riches not given to you.
Put out your hand through the night, let me hold it and fill it and keep it; let me feel its touch along the lengthening stretch of my loneliness.
LX
THE odour cries in the bud, "Ah me, the day departs, the happy day of spring, and I am a prisoner in petals!"
Do not lose heart, timid thing! Your bonds will burst, the bud will open into flower, and when you die in the fulness of life, even then the spring will live on.
The odour pants and flutters within the bud, crying, "Ah me, the hours pass by, yet I do not know where I go, or what it is I seek!"
Do not lose heart, timid thing! The spring breeze has overheard your desire, the day will not end before you have fulfilled your being.
Dark is the future to her, and the odour cries in despair, "Ah me, through whose fault is my life so unmeaning?
"Who can tell me, why I am at all?" Do not lose heart, timid thing! The perfect dawn is near when you will mingle your life with all life and know at last your purpose.
LXII
"WHAT is there but the sky, O Sun, that can hold thine image?"
"I dream of thee, but to serve thee I can never hope," the dewdrop wept and said, "I am too small to take thee unto me, great lord, and my life is all tears."
"I illumine the limitless sky, yet I can yield myself up to a tiny drop of dew," thus the Sun said; "I shall become but a sparkle of light and fill you, and your little life will be a laughing orb."
LXIII
NOT for me is the love that knows no restraint, but like the foaming wine that having burst its vessel in a moment would run to waste.
Send me the love which is cool and pure like your rain that blesses the thirsty earth and fills the homely earthen jars.
Send me the love that would soak down into the centre of being, and from there would spread like the unseen sap through the branching tree of life, giving birth to fruits and flowers.
Send me the love that keeps the heart still with the fulness of peace.
LXIX
You were in the centre of my heart, therefore when my heart wandered she never found you; you hid yourself from my loves and hopes till the last, for you were always in them.
You were the inmost joy in the play of my youth, and when I was too busy with the play the joy was passed by.
You sang to me in the ecstasies of my life and I forgot to sing to you.
LXXII
THE joy ran from all the world to build my body.
The lights of the skies kissed and kissed her till she woke.
Flowers of hurrying summers sighed in her breath and voices of winds and water sang in her movements.
The passion of the tide of colours in clouds and in forests flowed into her life, and the music of all things caressed her limbs into shape.
She is my bride,--she has lighted her lamp in my house.
LXXIX
LET me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
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