3


I remember the day.

The heavy shower of rain is slackening into fitful pauses, renewed gusts of
wind startle it from a first lull.

I take up my instrument. Idly I touch the strings, till, without my
knowing, the music borrows the mad cadence of that storm.

I see her figure as she steals from her work, stops at my door, and
retreats with hesitating steps. She comes again, stands outside leaning
against the wall, then slowly enters the room and sits down. With head
bent, she plies her needle in silence; but soon stops her work, and looks
out of the window through the rain at the blurred line of trees.

Only this--one hour of a rainy noon filled with shadows and song and
silence.

4


While stepping into the carriage she turned her head and threw me a swift
glance of farewell.

This was her last gift to me. But where can I keep it safe from the
trampling hours?

Must evening sweep this gleam of anguish away, as it will the last flicker
of fire from the sunset?

Ought it to be washed off by the rain, as treasured pollens are from
heart-broken flowers?

Leave kingly glory and the wealth of the rich to death. But may not tears
keep ever fresh the memory of a glance flung through a passionate moment?

"Give it to me to keep," said my song; "I never touch kings' glory or the
wealth of the rich, but these small things are mine for ever."

5


You give yourself to me, like a flower that blossoms at night, whose
presence is known by the dew that drips from it, by the odour shed through
the darkness, as the first steps of Spring are by the buds that thicken the
twigs.

You break upon my thought like waves at the high tide, and my heart is
drowned under surging songs.

My heart knew of your coming, as the night feels the approach of dawn. The
clouds are aflame and my sky fills with a great revealing flood.

6


I was to go away; still she did not speak. But I felt, from a slight
quiver, her yearning arms would say: "Ah no, not yet."

I have often heard her pleading hands vocal in a touch, though they knew
not what they said.

I have known those arms to stammer when, had they not, they would have
become youth's garland round my neck.

Their little gestures return to remembrance in the covert of still hours,
like truants they playfully reveal things she had kept secret from me.

7


My songs are like bees; they follow through the air some fragrant
trace--some memory--of you, to hum around your shyness, eager for its
hidden store.

When the freshness of dawn droops in the sun, when in the noon the air
hangs low with heaviness and the forest is silent, my songs return home,
their languid wings dusted with gold.

8


I believe you had visited me in a vision before we ever met, like some
foretaste of April before the spring broke into flower.

That vision must have come when all was bathed in the odour of _sal_
blossom; when the twilight twinkle of the river fringed its yellow sands,
and the vague sounds of a summer afternoon were blended; yes, and had it
not laughed and evaded me in many a nameless gleam at other moments?

9


I think I shall stop startled if ever we meet after our next birth, walking
in the light of a far-away world.

I shall know those dark eyes then as morning stars, and yet feel that they
have belonged to some unremembered evening sky of a former life.

I shall know that the magic of your face is not all its own, but has stolen
the passionate light that was in my eyes at some immemorial meeting, and
then gathered from my love a mystery that has now forgotten its origin.

10


Lay down your lute, my love, leave your arms free to embrace me.

Let your touch bring my overflowing heart to my body's utmost brink.

Do not bend your neck and turn away your face, but offer up a kiss to me,
which has been like some perfume long closed in a bud.

Do not smother this moment under vain words, but let our hearts quake in a
rush of silence sweeping all thoughts to the shoreless delight.

11


You have made me great with your love, though I am but one among the many,
drifting in the common tide, rocking in the fluctuant favour of the world.

You have given me a seat where poets of all time bring their tribute, and
lovers with deathless names greet one another across the ages.

Men hastily pass me in the market,--never noting how my body has grown
precious with your caress, how I carry your kiss within, as the sun carries
in its orb the fire of the divine touch and shines for ever.

12


Like a child that frets and pushes away its toys, my heart to-day shakes
its head at every phrase I suggest, and says, "No, not this."

Yet words, in the agony of their vagueness, haunt my mind, like vagrant
clouds hovering over hills, waiting for some chance wind to relieve them of
their rain.


But leave these vain efforts, my soul, for the stillness will ripen its own
music in the dark.

My life to-day is like a cloister during some penance, where the spring is
afraid to stir or to whisper.

This is not the time, my love, for you to pass the gate; at the mere
thought of your anklet bells tinkling down the path, the garden echoes are
ashamed.

Know that to-morrow's songs are in bud to-day, and should they see you walk
by they would strain to breaking their immature hearts.