THE NAME SHE called me by, like a flourishing jasmine, covered the whole seventeen years of our love. With its sound mingled the quiver of the light through the leaves, the scent of the grass in the rainy night, and the sad silence of the last hour of many an idle day. Not the work of God alone was he who answered to that name; she created him again for herself during those seventeen swift years. Other years were to follow, but their vagrant days, no longer gathered within the fold of that name uttered in her voice, stray and are scattered. They ask me, 'Who should fold us?' I find no answer and sit silent, and they cry to me while dispersing, 'We seek a shepherdess!' Whom should they seek? That they do not know. And like derelict evening clouds they drift in the trackless dark, and are lost and forgotten.
THE BOATMAN is out crossing the wild sea at night. The mast is aching because of its full sails filled with the violent wind. Stung with the night's fang the sky falls upon the sea, poisoned with black fear. The waves dash their heads against the dark unseen, and the Boatman is out crossing the wild sea. The Boatman is out, I know not for what tryst, startling the night with the sudden white of his sails. I know not at what shore, at last, he lands to reach the silent courtyard where the lamp is burning and to find her who sits in the dust and waits. What is the quest that makes his boat care not for storm nor darkness? Is it heavy with gems and pearls? Ah, no, the Boatman brings with him no treasure, but only a white rose in his hand and a song on his lips. It is for her who watches alone at night with her lamp burning. She dwells in the wayside hut. Her loose hair flies in the wind and hides her eyes. The storm shrieks through her broken doors, the light flickers in her earthen lamp flinging shadows on the walls. Through the howl of the winds she hears him call her name, she whose name is unknown. It is long since the Boatman sailed. It will be long before the day breaks and he knocks at the door. The drums will not be beaten and none will know. Only light shall fill the house, blessed shall be the dust, and the heart glad. All doubts shall vanish in silence when the Boatman comes to the shore.
