Produced by Eric Eldred, Christine De Ryck, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
1
Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugitive, round whose bodiless rush stagnantspace frets into eddying bubbles of light.
Is your heart lost to the Lover calling you across his immeasurableloneliness?
Is the aching urgency of your haste the sole reason why your tangledtresses break into stormy riot and pearls of fire roll along your path asfrom a broken necklace?
Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of this world into sweetness, sweepingaside all waste; the storm centred with your dancing limbs shakes thesacred shower of death over life and freshens her growth.
Should you in sudden weariness stop for a moment, the world would rumbleinto a heap, an encumbrance, barring its own progress, and even the leastspeck of dust would pierce the sky throughout its infinity with anunbearable pressure.
My thoughts are quickened by this rhythm of unseen feet round which theanklets of light are shaken.
They echo in the pulse of my heart, and through my blood surges the psalmof the ancient sea.
I hear the thundering flood tumbling my life from world to world and formto form, scattering my being in an endless spray of gifts, in sorrowingsand songs.
The tide runs high, the wind blows, the boat dances like thine own desire,my heart!
Leave the hoard on the shore and sail over the unfathomed dark towardslimitless light.
2
We came hither together, friend, and now at the cross-roads I stop to bidyou farewell.
Your path is wide and straight before you, but my call comes up by waysfrom the unknown.
I shall follow wind and cloud; I shall follow the stars to where day breaksbehind the hills; I shall follow lovers who, as they walk, twine their daysinto a wreath on a single thread of song, "I love."
3
It was growing dark when I asked her, "What strange land have I come to?"
She only lowered her eyes, and the water gurgled in the throat of her jar,as she walked away.
The trees hang vaguely over the bank, and the land appears as though italready belonged to the past.
The water is dumb, the bamboos are darkly still, a wristlet tinkles againstthe water-jar from down the lane.
Row no more, but fasten the boat to this tree,—for I love the look of thisland.
The evening star goes down behind the temple dome, and the pallor of themarbl