THE CLOUDS thicken till the morning light seems like a bedraggled fringe to the rainy night.

        A little girl stands at her window, still as a rainbow at the gate of a broken-down storm.

        She is my neighbour, and has come upon the earth like some god's rebellious laughter. Her mother in anger calls her incorrigible; her father smiles and calls her mad.

        She is like a runaway waterfall leaping over boulders, like the topmost bamboo twig rustling in the restless wind.

 

She stands at her window looking out into the sky.

        Her sister, comes to say, 'Mother calls you.' She shakes her head.

        Her little brother with his toy boat comes and tries to pull her off to play; she snatches her hand from his. The boy persists and she gives him a slap on the back.

 

The first great voice was the voice of wind and water in the beginning of earth's creation.

        That ancient cry of nature-her dumb call to unborn life-has reached this child's heart and leads it out alone beyond the fence of our times: so there she stands, possessed by eternity!