The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless in the light as they fain hide themselves.
I looked at the image on the altar. I saw it smiling and alive with the living touch of God. The night I had imprisoned had spread its wings and vanished.
Infinite wealth is not yours, my patient and dusky mother dust!
You toil to fill the mouths of your children, but food is scarce.
The gift of gladness that you have for us is never perfect.
The toys that you make for your children are fragile.
You cannot satisfy all our hungry hopes, but should I desert you for that?
Your smile which is shadowed with pain is sweet to my eyes.
Your love which knows not fulfilment is dear to my heart.
From your breast you have fed us with life but not immortality, that is why your eyes are ever wakeful.
For ages you are working with colour and song, yet your heaven is not built, but only its sad suggestion.
Over your creations of beauty there is the mist of tears.
I will pour my songs into your mute heart, and my love into your love.
I will worship you with labour.
I have seen your tender face and I love your mournful dust, Mother Earth.
In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeam and the of the midnight.
Thus my songs share their seats in the heart of the world with the music of the clouds and forests.
But, you man of riches, your wealth has no part in the simple grandeur of the sun’s glad gold and the mellow gleam of the musing moon.
The blessing of the all-embracing sky is not shed upon it.
And when death appears, it pales and withers and crumbles into dust.
At midnight the would-be ascetic announced:
“This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?”
God whispered, “I,” but the ears of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.
The man said, “Who are you that have fooled me so long?”
The voice said again, “They are God,” but he heard not.