ing and will greet
their sons, while mine lies dead. Oh, I thought that tears were human
only, yet I see each blade of shining grass weighed down with
dewdrop tears that glimmer in the air. Even the grass would seem all
sorrow filled as is my heart.

The whole night through the only sound has been the long-drawn note
of the bamboo flute, as the seller passes by, and the wind that wailed
and whistled and seemed to bring with it spirits of the other world who
came and taunted me that I did not save my son. Why, why did I not
save him! What is honour, what is this country, this fighting,
quarrelling, maddened country, what is our fame, in comparison to his
dear life? Why did we not accept the offer of escape! It was ours to
give or take; we gave, and I repent-- O God, how I repent! My boy, my
boy! I will be looking for his face in all my dreams and find despair.

.......

Dost thou remember how he came to me in answer to the Towers of
Prayer I raised when my first-born slept so deep a sleep he could not
be wakened even by the voice of his mother? But that sorrow passed
and I rose to meet a face whose name is memory. At last I knew it
was not kindness to mourn so for my dead. Over the River of Tears
their silent road is, and when mothers weep too long, the flood of that
river rises, and their souls cannot pass but must wander to and fro.
But to those whom they leave with empty arms they are never utterly
gone. They sleep in the darkest cells of tired hearts and busy brains,
to come at echo of a voice that recalls the past.

.......

My sleeve is wet with bitter rain; but tears cannot blot out the dream
visions that memory wakes, and the dead years answer to my call. I
see my boy, my baby, who was the gift of kindly Gods. When I first
opened my eyes upon him, I closed them to all the world besides,
and my soul rested in peace beside the jewel within its cradle. The
one sole wish of my heart was to be near him, to sit close by his
side, to have him day by day within my happy sight, and to lay my
cheek upon his rose-tipped feet at night. The sun's light seemed more
beautiful where it touched him, and the moon that lit my Heaven was
his eyes.

As he grew older he was fond of asking questions to which none but
the Gods could give reply, and I answered as only mothers will. When
he wished to play I laid aside my work to play with him, and when he
tired and wished to rest, I told him stories of the past. At evening
when t