s out its arms to the shoreless open sea like the very image of an
eager striving to embrace the infinite. The edge of the broad sandy
beach is fringed with a forest of casuarinas, broken at one end by the
_Kalanadi_ river which here flows into the sea after passing through a
gorge flanked by rows of hills on either side.

I remember how one moonlit evening we went up this river in a little
boat. We stopped at one of Shivaji's old hill forts, and stepping
ashore found our way into the clean-swept little yard of a peasant's
home. We sat on a spot where the moonbeams fell glancing off the top of
the outer enclosure, and there dined off the eatables we had brought
with us. On our way back we let the boat glide down the river. The night
brooded over the motionless hills and forests, and on the silent flowing
stream of this little _Kalanadi_, throwing over all its moonlight spell.
It took us a good long time to reach the mouth of the river, so, instead
of returning by sea, we got off the boat there and walked back home over
the sands of the beach. It was then far into the night, the sea was
without a ripple, even the ever-troubled murmur of the casuarinas was at
rest. The shadow of the fringe of trees along the vast expanse of sand
hung motionless along its border, and the ring of blue-grey hills around
the horizon slept calmly beneath the sky.

[Illustration: Karwar Beach]

Through the deep silence of this illimitable whiteness we few human
creatures walked along with our shadows, without a word. When we reached
home my sleep had lost itself in something still deeper. The poem which
I then wrote is inextricably mingled with that night on the distant
seashore. I do not know how it will appeal to the reader apart from the
memories with which it is entwined. This doubt led to its being left
out of Mohita Babu's edition of my works. I trust that a place given to
it among my reminiscences may not be deemed unfitting.

Let me sink down, losing myself in the depths of
midnight.
Let the Earth leave her hold of me, let her free me
from her obstacle of dust.
Keep your watch from afar, O stars, drunk though
you be with moonlight,
And let the horizon hold its wings still around me.
Let there be no song, no word, no sound, no touch;
nor sleep, nor awakening,--
But only the moonlight like a swoon of ecstasy
over the sky and my being.
The world seems to me like