My fancies are fireflies, — Specks of living lighttwinkling in the voice of wayside pansies,that do not attract the careless glance,murmurs in these desultory lines.
In the drowsy dark caves of the minddreams build their nest with fragmentsdropped from day's caravan.
Spring scatters the petals of flowersthat are not for the fruits of the future,but for the moment's whim.
Joy freed from the bond of earth's slumberrushes into numberless leaves,and dances in the air for a day.
My words that are slightmy lightly dance upon time's waveswhen my works havy with import have gone down.
Mind's underground mothsgrow filmy wingsand take a farewell flightin the sunset sky.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,and has time enough.
My thoughts, like spark, ride on winged surprises,carrying a single laughter.
The tree gazes in love at its own beautiful shadowwhich yet it never can grasp.
Let my love, like sunlight, surround youand yet give you illumined freedom.
Days are coloured vbubblesthat float upon the surface of fathomless night.
My offerings are too timid to claim your remembrance,and therefore you may remember them.
Leave out my name from the giftif it be a burden,but keep my song.
April, like a child,writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers,wipes them away and forgets.
Memory, the priestess,kills the presentand offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past.
From the solemn gloom of the templechildren run out to sit in the dust,
God watches them playand forgets the priest.
My mind starts up at some flashon the flow of its thoughtslike a brook at a sudden liquid note of its ownthat is never repeated.
In the mountain, stillness surges upto explore its own height;in the lake, movement stands stillto contemplate its own depth.
The departing night's one kisson the closed eyes of morningglows in the star of dawn.
Maiden, thy beauty is like a fruitwhich is yet to mature,tense with an unyielding secret.
Sorrow that has lost its memoryis like the dumb dark hoursthat have no bird songsbut only the cricket's chirp.
Bigotry tries to keep turth safe in its handwith a grip that kills it.
Wishing to hearten a timid lampgreat night lights all her stars.
Though he holds in his arms the earth-bride,the sky is ever immensely away.
God seeks comrades and claims love,the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.
The soil in return for her servicekeeps the tree tied to her,the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.
Jewel-like immortaldoes not boast of its length of yearsbut of the scintillating point of its moment.
The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time,unobscured by the dust of history.
Alight laughter in the steps of creationcarries it swiftly across time.
One who was distant came near to me in the morning,and still nearer when taken away by night.
White and pink oleanders meetand make merry in different dialects.
When peace is active swepping its dirt, it is storm.
The lake lies low by the hill,a tearful entreaty of loveat the foot of the inflexible.
There smiles the Divine Childamong his playthings of unmeaning cloudsand ephemeral lights and shadows.
The breeze whispers to the lotus,"What is thy secret?""It is myself," says the lotus,"Steal it and I disappear!"The freedom of the storm and the bondage of the stemjoin hands in the dance of swaying branches.
The jasmine's lisping of love to the sun is her flowers.
The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedomand yet to keep it for himself.
Gods, tired of their paradise, envy man.
Clouds are hills in vapour,hills are clouds in stone, —a phantasy in time's dream.
While God waits for His temple to be built of love,men bring stones.
I touch God in my songas the hill touches the far-away seawith its waterfall.
Light finds her treasure of coloursthrough the antagonism of clouds.
My heart to-day smiles at its past night of tearslike a wet tree glistening in the sun after the rain is over.
I have thanked the trees that have made my life fruitflul,but have failed to remember the grassthat has ever kept it green.
The one without second is emptiness,the other one makes it true.
Life's errors cry for the merciful beautythat can modulate their isolationinto a harmony with the whole.
They expect thanks for the banished nestbecause their cage is shapely and secure.
In love I pay my endless debt to theefor what thou art.
The pond sends up its lyrics from its dark in lilies,and the sun says, they are good.
Your calumny against the great is impious,it hurts yourself;against the small it is mean,for it hurts the victim.
The first flower that blossomed on this earthwas an invitation to the unborn song.
Dawn—the many-coloured flower—fades,and then the simple light-fruit,the sun appears.
The muscle that has a doubt if its wisdomthrottles the voice that would cry.
The wind tries to take the flame by storm only to blow it out.
Life's play is swift,
Life's playthings fall behind one by oneand are forgotten.
My flower, seek not thy paradisein a fool's buttonhole.
Thou hast risen late, my crescent moon,but my night bird is still awake to greet thee.
Darkness is the veiled bridesilently waiting for the errant lightto return to her bosom.
Trees are the earth's endless effort tospeak to the listening heaven.
The burden of self is lightenedwhen I laugh at myself.
The weak can be terrible because they try furiously to appear strong.
The wind of heaven blows,
The anchor desperately clutches the mud,and my boat is beating its breast against the chain.
The spirit of death is one,the spirit of life is many,
Whe God is dead religion becomes one.
The blue of the sky longs for the earth's green,the wind between them sighs, "Alas."Day's pain muffled by its own glare,burns among stars in the night.
The stars crowd round the virgin nightin silent awe at her lonelinessthat can never be touched.
The cloud gives all its goldto the departing sunand greets the rising moonwith only a pale smile.
He who does good comes to the temple gate,he who loves reaches the shrine.
Flower, have pity for the worm,it is not a bee,its love is a blunder and a burden.
With the ruins of terror's triumphchildren build their doll's house.
The lamp waits through the long day of neglectfor the flame's kiss in the night.
Feathers in the dust lying lazily contenthave forgotten their sky.
The flowers which is singleneed not envy the thornsthat are numerous.
The world suffers most from the disinterested tyrannyof its well-wisher.
We gain freedom whrn we have paid the full pricefor our right to live.
Your careless gifts of a moment,like the meteors of an autumn night,catch fire in the depth of my being.
The faith waiting in the heart of a seedpromises a miracle of lifewhich it cannot prove at once.
Spring hesitates at winter's door,but the mango blossom rashly runs our to himbefore her time and meets her doom.
The world is the ever-changing foamthet floats on the surface of a sea of silence.
The two separated shores mingle their voicesin a song of unfathomed tears.
As a river in the sea,work finds its fulfilmentin the depth of leisure.
I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost ist bossom,but the azalea brins to me, my love, thy forgiveness.
Thy shy little pomegranate bud,blushing to-day behind her veil,will burst into a passionate flowerto-morrow when I am away.
The clumsiness of power spoils the key,and uses the pickaxe.
Birth is from the mystery of nightinto the grerater mystery of day.
These paper boats of mine are meant to danceon the ripples of hours,and not to reach any destination.
Migratory songs wing from my heartand seek their nests in your voice of love.
The sea of danger, doubt and denialaround man's little island of certaintychallenges him to dare the unknown.
Love punishes when it forgives,and injured beauty by its awful silence.
You live alone and unrecompensedbecause they are afraid of your great worth.
The same sun is newly born in new landsin a ring of endless dawns.
God is world is ever renewed by death,a Titan's ever crushed by its own existence.
The glow-worm while exploring the dustnever knows that stars are in the sky.
The tree is of to-day, the flower is old,it brings with it the messageof the immemorial seed.
Each rose that comes brings me greetingsfrom the Rose of an eternal spring.
God honours me when I work,
He loves me when I sing.
My love of to-day finds no homein the nest deserted by yesterday's love.
The fire of pain tracse for my soula luminous path across her sorrow.
The grass survives the hillthrough its resurrections from countless deaths.
Thou hast vanished from my reachleaving an impalpable touch in the blue of the sky,an invisible image in the wind movingamong the shadows.
In pity for the desolate branchspring leaves to it a kiss that fluttered in a lonely leaf.
The shy shadow in the fardenloves the sun in silence,
Flowers guess the secret, and mile,while the leaves whisper.
I leave no trace of wings in the air,but I am glad I have had my flight.
The fireflies, twinkling among leaves,make the stars wonder.
The mountain remains unmovedat its seeming defeat by the mist.
While the rose said to the sun,"I shall ever remember thee,"her petals fell to the dust.
Hills are the earth's gesture of despairfor the unreachable.
Though the thorn in thy flower pricked me,
O Beauty,
I am grateful.
The world knows that the feware more than the many.
Let not my love be a burden on you, my friend,know that it pays itself.
Dawn plays her lute before the gate of darkness,and is content to vanish when the sun comes out.
Beauty is truth's smilewhen she beholds her own facein a perfect mirror.
The dew-drop knows the sunonly within its own tiny orb.
Forlorn thoughts from the forsaken hives of all ages,swarming in the air, hum round my heartand seek my voice.
The desert is imprisoned in the wallof its unbounded barrenness.
In the thrill of little leavesI see the air's invisible dance,and in their glimmeringthe secret heart-beats of the sky.
You are like a flowering tree,amazed when I praise you for your gifts.
The earth's sacrifical fireflames up in her trees,scattering sparks in flowers.
Foretsts, the clouds of earth,hold up to the sky their silence,and clouds from above come downin resonant showers.
The world speaks to me in pictures,my soul answers in music.
The sky tells its beads all nighton the countless starsin memory of the sun.
The darkness of night, like pain, is dumb,the darkness of dawn, like peace, is silent.
Pride engraves his frowns in stones,loe offers her surrender in flowers.
The obsequious brush curtails truthin diference to the canvas which is narrow.
The hill in its longing for the far-away skywishes to be like the cloudwith its endless urge of seeking.
To justify their own spilling of inkthey spell the day as night.
Profit smiles on goodnesswhen the good is profitable.
In its swelling pridethe bubble doubts the turth of the sea,and laughs and bursts into emptiness.
Love is an endless mystery,for it has nothing else to explain its.
My clouds, sorrowing in the dark,forget that they themselveshave hidden the sun.
Man discovers his own wealthwhen God comes to ask gifts of him.
You leave your memory as a flameto my lonely lamp of separation.
I came to offer thee a flower,but thou must have all my garden,—It is thine.
The picture—a memory of lighttreasured by the shadow.
It is easy to make faces at the sun,
He is exposed by his own light in alldirections.
History slowly smothers its truth,but hastily struggles to revive itin the terrible penance of pain.
My work is rewarded in daily wages,
I wait for my final value in love.
Beauty knows to say, "Enough,"barbarism clamours for still more.
God loves to see in me, not his servant,but himself who serves all.
The darkness of night is in harmony with day,the morning of mist is discordant.
In the bounteous time of roses love is wine,—it is food in the famished hourwhen their petals are shed.
An unknown flower in a strange landspeaks to the poet:"Are we not of the same soil, my lover?"I am able to love my Godbecause He gives me freedom to deny Him.
My untuned strings beg for musicin their anguished cry of shame.
The worm thinks it strange and foolishthat man does not eat his books.
The clouded sky to-day bears the visiorof the shadow of a divine sadnesson the forehead of brooding eternity.
The shade of my tree is for passers-by,its fruit for the one for whom I wait.
Flushed with the glow of sunsetearth seems like a ripe fruitready to be harvested by night.
Light accepts darkness for his spousefor the sake of creation.
The reed waits for his master's breath,the Master goes seeking for his reed.
To the blind pen the hand that writes is unreal,its writing unmeaning.
The sea smites his own barren breastbecause he has no flowers to offer to the moon.
The greed for fruit misses the flower.
God in His temple of starswaits for man to bring him his lamp.
The fire restrained in the tree fashions flowers.
Released from bonds, the shameless flamedies in barren ashes.
The sky sets no snare to capture the moon,it is her own freedom which binds her.
The light that fills the skyseeks its limit in a dew-drop on the grass.
Wealth is the burden of bigness,
Welfare the fulness of being.
The razor-blade is proud of its keennesswhen it sneers at the sun.
The butterfly has leisure to love the lotus,not the bee busily storing honey.
Child, thou bringest to my heartthe babble of the wind and the water,the flower's speechless secrets, the clouds' dreams,the mute gaze of wonder of the morning sky.
The rainbow among the clouds may be greatbut the little butterfly among the bushes is greater.
The mist weaves her net round the morning,captivates him, and makes him blind.
The Morning Star whispers to Dawn,"Tell me that you are only for me.""Yes," she answers,"And also only for that nameless flower."The sky remains infinitely vacantfor earth there to build its heaven with dreams.
Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubtat being told that it is a fragmentawaiting perfection.
Let the evening forgive the mistakes of the dayand thus win peace for herself.
Beauty smiles in the confinement of the bud,in the heart of a sweet incompleteness.
Your flitting love lightly brushed with its wingsmy sun-flowerand never asked if it was ready to surrender its honey.
Leaves are silencesaround flowers which are their words.
The tree bears its thousand yearsas one large majestic moment.
My offerings are not for the temple at the end of the road,but for the wayside shrinesthat surprise me at every bend.
Hour smile, my love, like the smell of a strange flower,is simple and inexplicable.
Death laughs when the merit of the dead is exaggeratedfor it swells his store with more than he can claim.
The sigh of the shore follows in vainthe breeze that hastens the ship across the sea.
Truth loves its limits,for there it meets the beautiful.
Between the shores of Me and Theethere is the loud ocean, my own surging self,which I long to cross.
The right to possess boasts foolishlyof its right to enjoy.
The rose is a great deal morethan a blushing apology for the thorn.
Day offers to the silence of starshis golden lute to be tunedfor the endless life.
The wise know how to teach,the fool how to smite.
The centre is still and silent in the heartof an enternal dance of circles.
The judge thinks that he is just when he
The oil of another's lampwith the light of his own.
The captive flower in the King's wreathsmiles bitterly when the meadow-flower envies her.
Its store of snow is the hill's own burden,its outpouring if streams is borne by all the world.
Listen to the prayer of the forestfor its freedom in flowers.
Let your love see meeven through the barrier of nearness.
The spirit of work in creation is thereto carry and help the spirit of play.
To carry the burden of the insturment,count the cost of its material,and never to know that it is for music,is the tragedy of deaf life.
Faith is the bird that feels the lightand sings when the dawn is still dark.
I bring to thee, night, my day's empty cup,to be cleansed with thy cool darknessfor a new morning's festival.
The mountain fir, in its rustling,modulates the memory of its fights with the storminto a hymn of peace.
God honoured me with his fightwhen I was rebellious,
He ignored me when I was languid.
The sectarina thinksthat he has the sealadled into his private pond.
In the shady depth of lifeare the lonely nests of memoriesthat shrink from words.
Let my love find its strengthin the service of day,its peace in the union of night.
Life sends up in blades of grassits silent hymn of praiseto the unnamed Light.
The stars of night are to methe memorials of my day's faded flowers.
Open thy door to that which must go,for the loss becomes unseemly when obstructed.
True end is not in the reaching of the limit,but in a completion which is limitless.
The shore whispers to the sea:"Write to me what thy waves struggle to say."The sea writes in foam again and againand wipes off the lines in a boisterous despair.
Let the touch ofthy finger thrill my life's stringsand make the music thine and mine.
The inner world rounded in my life like a fruit,matured in joy and sorrow,will drop into the darkness of the orogonal soilfor some further course of creation.
Form is in Matter, rhythm in Force,meaning in the Person.
There are seekers of wisdom and seekers of wealth,
I seek thy company so that I may sing.
As the tree its leaves,
I shed my words on the earth,let my thoughts unuttered flower in thy silence.
My faith in truth, my vision of the perfect,help thee,
Master, in thy creation.
All the delights that I have feltin life's fruits and flowerslet me offer to thee at the end of the feast,in a perfect union of love.
Some have thought deeply and explored themeaning of thy truth,and they are great;
I have listened to catch the music of thy play,and I am glad.
The tree is a winged spiritreleased from the bondage of seed,pursuing its adventure of lifeacross the unknown.
The lotus offers its beauty to the heaven,the grass its service to the earth.
The sun's kiss mellows into abandonmentthe miserliness of the green fruit clinging to its stem.
The flame met the earthen lamp in me,and what a great marvel of light!
Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truthand therefore delude us.
The cloud laughed at the rainbowsaying that is was an upstartgaudy in its emptiness.
The rainbow calmly answered,"I am as inevitably real as tha sun himself."Let me not grope in vain in the darkbut keep my mind still in the faiththat the day will breakand truth will appearin its simplicity.
Through the silent nightI hear the returning vagrant hopes of the morningknock at my heart.
My new love comesbringing to me the eternal wealth of the old.
The earth gazes at the moon and wondersthat she sould have all her music in her smile.
Day with its glare of curiosityputs the stars to flight.
My mind has itstrue union with thee,
O sky,at the window which is mine own,and not in the openwhere thou hast thy sole kingdom.
Man claims God's flowers as his ownwhen he weaves them in a garland.
The buried city, laid bare to the sun of a new age,is ashamed that is has lost all its song.
Like my heart's pain that has long missed its meaning,the sun's rays robed in darkhide themselves under the ground.
Like my heart'spain at love's sudden touch,they change their veil at the spring's calland come out in the carnival of colours,in flowers and leaves.
My life's empty flutewaits for its final musiclike the primal darknessbefore the stars came out.
Emancipation from the bondage of the soilis no freedom for the tree.
The tapestry of life's story is wovenwith the threads of life's tiesever joining and breaking.
Those thoughts of mine that are never captured by wordsperch upon my song and dance.
My soul to-night loses itselfin the silent heart of a treestanding alone among the whispers of immensity.
Pearl shells cast up by the seaon death's barren beach,—a magnificent wastefulness of creative life.
The sunlight opens for me the word's gate,love's light its terasure.
My life like the reed with ist stops,has its play od coloursthrough the gaps in its hopes and gains.
Let not my thanks to theerob my silence of its fuller homage.
Life's aspirations comein the guise of children.
The faded flower sighsthat the spring has vanished for ever.
In my life's gardenmy wealth has been of the shadows and lightsthat are never gathered and stored.
The fruit that I Have gained for everis thet which thou hast accepted.
The jasmine knows the sun to be her brotherin the heaven.
Light is young, the ancient light;shadows are of the moment, they are born old.
I feel that the ferry of my songs at the day's endwill brong me across to the other shorefrom where I shall see.
The butterfly flitting from flower to flowerever remains mine,
I lose the one that is netted by me.
Your voice, free bird, reaches my sleeping nest,and my drowsy wings dreamof a voyage to the lightabove the clouds.
I miss the meaning of my own partin the play of lifebecause I know not of the partsthat others play.
The flower sheds all its petalsand finds the fruit.
I leave my songs behind me to the bloom of the ever-returning honeysucklesand the joy of the wind from the south.
Dead leaves when they lose themselves in soiltake part in the life of the forest.
The mind ever seeks its wordsfrom its sounds and silenceas the sky from its darkness and light.
The unseen dark plays on his fluteand the rhythm of lighteddies into stars and suns,into thoughts and reams.
My songs are to singthat I have loved Thy singing.
When the voice of the Silent touches my wordsI know him and therefore I know myself.
My last salutations are to themwho knew me imperfect and loved me.
Love's gift cannot be given,it waits to be accepted.
When death comes and whispers to me,"Thy days are ended,"let me say to him, "I have lived in loveand not in mere time."He will ask, "Will thy songs remain?"I shall say, "I know not, but this I knowthat often when I sang I found my eternity.""Let me light my lamp,"say the star,'and never debateif it will help to remove the darkness."Before the end of my journeymay I reach within myselfthe one which is the all,leaving the outer shellto float away with the drifting multitudeupon the current of chance and change.
