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.
She is still a child, my lord.
She runs about your palace and plays, and tries to make of you a plaything as well.
She heeds not when her hair tumbles down and her careless garment drags in the dust.
She falls asleep when you speak to her and answers not-and the flower you give her in the morning slips to the dust from her hands.
When the storm bursts and darkness is over the sky she is sleepless; her dolls lie scattered on the earth and she clings to you in terror.
She is afraid that she may fail in service to you.
But with a smile you watch her at her game.
You know her.
The child sitting in the dust is your destined bride; her play will be stilled and deepened into love.
“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 alaughing orb.”
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.