you wandering alone by the shore of my life, where the tide is in flood, O lover of my endless days?
Are my dreams flitting round you like the moths with their many-coloured wings?
And are those your songs that are echoing in the dark eaves of my being?
Who but you can hear the hum of the crowded hours that sounds in my veins to-day, the glad steps that dance in my breast, the clamour of the restless life beating its wings in my body?
LXXIV
My bonds are cut, my debts are paid, my door has been opened, I go everywhere.
They crouch in their corner and weave their web of pale hours, they count their coins sitting in the dust and call me back.
But my sword is forged, my armour is put on, my horse is eager to run.
I shall win my kingdom.
LXXV
It was only the other day that I came to your earth, naked and nameless, with a wailing cry.
To-day my voice is glad, while you, my lord, stand aside to make room that I may fill my life.
Even when I bring you my songs for an offering I have the secret hope that men will come and love me for them.
You love to discover that I love this world where you have brought me.
LXXVI
Timidly I cowered in the shadow of safety, but now, when the surge of joy carries my heart upon its crest, my heart clings to the cruel rock of its trouble.
I sat alone in a corner of my house thinking it too narrow for any guest, but now when its door is flung open by an unbidden joy I find there is room for thee and for all the world.
I walked upon tiptoe, careful of my person, perfumed, and adorned—but now when a glad whirlwind has overthrown me in the dust I laugh and roll on the earth at thy feet like a child.
LXXVII
The world is yours at once and for ever.
And because you have no want, my king, you have no pleasure in your wealth.
It is as though it were naught. Therefore through slow time you give me what is yours, and ceaselessly win your kingdom in me.
Day after day you buy your sunrise from my heart, and you find your love carven into the image of my life.
LXXVIII
To the birds you gave songs, the birds gave you songs in return.
You gave me only voice, yet asked for more, and I sing.
You made your winds light and they are fleet in their service. You burdened my hands that I myself may lighten them, and at last, gain unburdened freedom for your service.
You created your Earth filling its shadows with fragments of light.
There you paused; you left me empty-handed in the dust to create your heaven.
To all things else you give; from me you ask.
The harvest of my life ripens in the sun and the shower till I reap more than you sowed, gladdening your heart, O Master of the golden granary.
LXXIX
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
LXXX
You did not know yourself when you dwelt alone, and there was no crying of an errand when the wind ran from the hither to the farther shore.
I came and you woke, and the skies blossomed with lights.
You made me open in many flowers; rocked me in the cradles of many forms; hid me in death and found me again in life.
I came and your heart heaved; pain came to you and joy.
You touched me and tingled into love.
But in my eyes there is a film of shame and in my breast a flicker of fear; my face is veiled and I weep when I cannot see you.
Yet I know the endless thirst in your heart for sight of me, the thirst that cries at my door in the repeated knockings of sunrise.
LXXXI
You, in your timeless watch, listen to my approaching steps while your gladness gathers in the morning twilight and breaks in the burst of light.
The nearer I draw to you the deeper grows the fervour in the dance of the sea.
Your world is a branching spray of light filling your hands, but your heaven is in my secret heart; it slowly opens its buds in shy love.
LXXXII
I will utter your name, sitting alone among the shadows of my silent thoughts.
I
