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.

LIV

The Cloud said to me, "I vanish"; the Night said, "I plunge into
the fiery dawn."

The Pain said, "I remain in deep silence as his footprint."

"I die into the fulness," said my life to me.

The Earth said, "My lights kiss your thoughts every moment."

"The days pass," Love said, "but I wait for you."

Death said, "I ply the boat of your life across the sea."

LV

Tulsidas, the poet, was wandering, deep in thought, by the
Ganges, in that lonely spot where they burn their dead.

He found a woman sitting at the feet of the corpse of her dead
husband, gaily dressed as for a wedding.

She rose as she saw him, bowed to him, and said, "Permit me,
Master, with your blessing, to follow my husband to heaven."

"Why such hurry, my daughter?" asked Tulsidas. "Is not this
earth also His who made heaven?"

"For heaven I do not long," said the woman. "I want my husband."

Tulsidas smiled and said to her, "Go back to your home, my child.
Before the month is over you will find your husband."

The woman went back with glad hope. Tulsidas came to her every
day and gave her high thoughts to think, till her heart was
filled to the brim with divine love.

When the month was scarcely over, her neighbours came to her,
asking, "Woman, have you found your husband?"

The widow smiled and said, "I have."

Eagerly they asked, "Where is he?"

"In my heart is my lord, one with me," said the woman.

LVI

You came for a moment to my side and touched me with the great
mystery of the woman that there is in the heart of creation.

She who is ever returning to God his own outflowing of
sweetness; she is the ever fresh beauty and youth in nature; she
dances in the bubbling streams and sings in the morning light;
she with heaving waves suckles the thirsty earth; in her the
Eternal One breaks in two in a joy that no longer may contain
itself, and overflows in the pain of love.

LVII

Who is she who dwells in my heart, the woman forlorn for ever?

I wooed her and I failed to win her. I decked he