YOU ASK ME, mother, where I most wish to go. It is there from where I first came to you. But I never can remember the place. My father smiles at my trouble and says. 'It is beyond the clouds in the land of the evening star.' But I hear from you, it is deep in the bosom of the earth, from where the flowers come away seeking the sun. 'That land lies unseen,' my auntie says, 'in the bottom of the sea, hiding all the precious gems in its store.' My brother pulls my hair and says, 'How can you find it, you stupid one, for it is mingled in the air.' It must be everywhere, it seems to me when I listen to you all. Only my school-master shakes his head and says'It is nowhere.'
I KNOW THAT at the dim end of some day the sun will bid me its last farewell. Shepherds will play their pipes beneath the banyan trees, and cattle graze on the slope by the river, while my days will pass into the dark. This is my prayer, that I may know before I leave why the earth called me to her arms. Why her night's silence spoke to me of stars, and her daylight kissed my thoughts into flower. Before I go may I linger over my last refrain, completing its music, may the lamp be lit to see your face and the wreath woven to crown you.