WHO STOLE sleep from baby's eyes? I must know. Clasping her pitcher to her waist mother went to fetch water from the village near by. It was noon. The children's playtime was over; the ducks in the pond were silent. The shepherd boy lay asleep under the shadow of the banyan tree. The crane stood grave and still in the swamp near the mango grove. In the meanwhile the Sleepstealer came and, snatching sleep from baby's eyes, flew away. When mother came back she found baby travelling the room over on all fours. Who stole sleep from our baby's eyes? I must know. I must find her and chain her up. I must look into that dark cave, where, through boulders and scowling stones, trickles a tiny stream. I must search in the drowsy shade of the bakula grove, where pigeons coo in their corner, and fairies' anklets tinkle in the stillness of starry nights. In the evening I will peep into the whispering silence of the bamboo forest, where fireflies squander their light, and will ask every creature I meet, 'Can anybody tell me where the Sleep-stealer lives?' Who stole sleep from baby's eyes? I must know. Shouldn't I give her a good lesson if I could only catch her! I would raid her nest and see where she hoards all her stolen sleep. I would plunder it all, and carry it home. I would bind her two wings securely, set her on the bank of the river, and then let her play at fishing with a reed among the rushes and water-lilies. When the marketing is over in the evening, and the village children sit in their mothers' laps, then the night birds will mockingly din her ears with: 'Whose sleep will you steal now?'
II. 37. angadhiya deva O LORD Increate, who will serve Thee? Every votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation: each day he receives service None seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord. They believe in ten Avatars; but no Avatar can be the Infinite Spirit, for he suffers the results of his deeds: The Supreme One must be other than this. The Yogi, the Sanyasi, the Ascetics, are disputing one with another: Kabir says, 'O brother! he who has seen that radiance of love, he is saved.'
I HAVE FELT your muffled steps in my blood, Evermoving Past, have seen your hushed countenance in the heart of the garrulous day. You have come to write the unfinished stories of our fathers in unseen script on the pages of our destiny; You lead back to life the unremembered designs for the shaping of new images. Is not the restless Present itself a crowd of your own visions Flung up like a constellation from the abyss of dumb night?
