THE FATHER came back from the funeral rites. His boy of seven stood at the window, with eyes wide open and a golden amulet hanging from his neck, full of thoughts too difficult for his age. His father took him in his arms and the boy asked him, 'Where is mother?' In heaven,' answered his father, pointing to the sky. At night the father groaned in slumber, weary with grief. A lamp dimly burned near the bedroom door, and a lizard chased moths on the wall. The boy woke up from sleep, felt with his hands the emptiness in the bed, and stole out to the open terrace. The boy raised his eyes to the sky and long gazed in silence. His bewildered mind sent abroad into the night the question, 'Where is heaven?' No answer came: and the stars seemed like the burning tears of that ignorant darkness.
THE ODOUR CRIES in the bud, 'Ah me, the day departs, the happy day of spring, and I am a prisoner in petals!' Do not lose heart, timid thing! Your bonds will burst, the bud will open into flower, and when you die in the fulness of life, even then the spring will live on. The odour pants and flutters within the bud, crying, 'Ah me, the hours pass by, yet I do not know where I go, or what it is I seek!' Do not lose heart, timid thing! The spring breeze has overheard your desire, the day will not end before you have fulfilled your being. Dark is the future to her, and the odour cries in despair, 'Ah me, through whose fault is my life so unmeaning?' 'Who can tell me, why I am at all?' Do not lose heart, timid thing! The perfect dawn is near when you will mingle your life with all life and know at last your purpose.
