eaning?
"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.
LXI
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.
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.
LXIV
The sun had set on the western margin of the river among the
tangle of the forest.
The hermit boys had brought the cattle home, and sat round the
fire to listen to the master, Guatama, when a strange boy came,
and greeted him with fruits and flowers, and, bowing low at his
feet, spoke in a bird-like voice--"Lord, I have come to thee to
be taken into the path of the supreme Truth.
"My name is Satyakama."
"Blessings be on thy head," said the master.
"Of what clan art thou, my child? It is only fitting for a
Brahmin to aspire to the highest wisdom."
"Master,"
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