The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.
My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and
her every new kiss is the first kiss to me.
The road and I are lovers. I change my dress for her night
after night, leaving the tattered cumber of the old in the wayside
inns when the day dawns.

Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is
beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day
and night; it is not of the earth.
But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and
space, and it strives evermore to be born in the fruitful dust.
Heaven is fulfilled in your sweet body, my child, in your
palpitating heart.
The sea is beating its drums in joy, the flowers are a-tiptoe
to kiss you. For heaven is born in you, in the arms of the mother-
dust.

Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as
this dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are
immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form.
The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your
limbs singing of life. My world found its speech in your voice, and
touched my heart with your face. You suddenly stopped in your walk,
in the shadow-side of the Forever, and I went on alone.
Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it
runs; it beckons me on, I follow the unseen; but you stand there,

It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the
noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims
that the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the
birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden
hooks are waiting there for the thrill of lovers' whispers. There
the moon-light, that is all one kiss for the malati flowers, has
its deep message, but those who understand it are far below fifty.
And alas, youth is inexperienced and wilful, therefore it is

Last night in the garden I offered you my youth's foaming wine. You
lifted the cup to your lips, you shut your eyes and smiled while
I raised your veil, unbound your tresses, drawing down upon my
breast your face sweet with its silence, last night when the moon's
dream overflowed the world of slumber.
To-day in the dew-cooled calm of the dawn you are walking to
God's temple, bathed and robed in white, with a basketful of
flowers in your hand. I stand aside in the shade under the tree,
with my head bent, in the calm of the dawn by the lonely road to

Take back your coins, King's Councillor. I am of those women you
sent to the forest shrine to decoy the young ascetic who had never
seen a women. I failed in your bidding.
Dimly day was breaking when the hermit boy came to bathe in
the stream, his tawny locks crowded on his shoulders, like a
cluster of morning clouds, and his limbs shining like a streak of
sunbeam. We laughed and sang as we rowed in our boat; we jumped
into the river in a mad frolic, and danced around him, when the sun
rose staring at us from the water's edge in a flush of divine

In the beginning of time, there rose from the churning of God's
dream two women. One is the dancer at the court of paradise, the
desired of men, she who laughs and plucks the minds of the wise
from their cold meditations and of fools from their emptiness; and
scatters them like seeds with careless hands in the extravagant
winds of March, in the flowering frenzy of May.
The other is the crowned queen of heaven, the mother, throned
on the fullness of golden autumn; she who in the harvest-time

Tired of waiting, you burst your bonds, impatient flowers, before
the winter had gone. Glimpses of the unseen comer reached your
wayside watch, and you rushed out running and panting, impulsive
jasmines, troops of riotous roses.
You were the first to march to the breach of death, your
clamour of colour and perfume troubled the air. You laughed and
pressed and pushed each other, bared your breast and dropped in
heaps.
The Summer will come in its time, sailing in the flood-tide
of the south wind. But you never counted slow moments to be sure

She is near to my heart as the meadow-flower to the earth; she is
sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs. My love for her is my life
flowing in its fullness, like a river in autumn flood, running with
serene abandonment. My songs are one with my love, like the murmur
of a stream, that sings with all its waves and current.

Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that
press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some
chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet
elude.
For lover's gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits
across the shade, spreading a shiver of joy along the dust.
Overtake it or miss it for ever. But a gift that can be
grasped is merely a frail flower, or a lamp with flame that will
flicker.