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The Gardener
by
The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless in the light as they would fain hide themselves.
I looked at the image on the altar. I saw it smiling and alive with the living touch of God. The night I had imprisoned had spread its wings and vanished.
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Infinite wealth is not yours, my patient and dusky mother dust!
You toil to fill the mouths of your children, but food is scarce.
The gift of gladness that you have for us is never perfect.
The toys that you make for your children are fragile.
You cannot satisfy all our hungry hopes, but should I desert you for that?
Your smile which is shadowed with pain is sweet to my eyes.
Your love which knows not fulfilment is dear to my heart.
From your breast you have fed us with life but not immortality, that is why your eyes are ever wakeful.
For ages you are working with colour and song, yet your heaven is not built, but only its sad suggestion.
Over your creations of beauty there is the mist of tears.
I will pour my songs into your mute heart, and my love into your love.
I will worship you with labour.
I have seen your tender face and I love your mournful dust, Mother Earth.
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In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeam and the stars of midnight.
Thus my songs share their seats in the heart of the world with the music of the clouds and forests.
But, you man of riches, your wealth has no part in the simple grandeur of the sun’s glad gold and the mellow gleam of the musing moon.
The blessing of all-embracing sky is not shed upon it.
And when death appears, it pales and withers and crumbles into dust.
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At midnight the would-be ascetic announced:
“This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?”
God whispered, “I,” but the ears of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.
The man said, “Who are ye that have fooled me so long?”
The voice said again, “They are God,” but he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream, nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, “Stop, fool, leave not thy home,” but still he heard not.
God sighed and complained, “Why does my servant wander to seek me, forsaking me?”
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The fair was on before the temple. It had rained from the early morning and the day came to its end.
Brighter than all the gladness of the crowd was the bright smile of a girl who bought for a farthing a whistle of palm leaf.
The shrill joy of that whistle floated above all laughter and noise.
An endless throng of people came and jostled together. The road was muddy, the river in flood, the field under water in ceaseless rain.
Greater than all the troubles of the crowd was a little boy’s trouble–he had not a farthing to buy a painted stick.
His wistful eyes gazing at the shop made this whole meeting of men so pitiful.
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The workman and his wife from the west country are busy digging to make bricks for the kiln.
Their little daughter goes to the landing-place by the river;
there she has no end of scouring and scrubbing of pots and pans.
Her little brother, with shaven head and brown, naked, mud- covered limbs, follows after her and waits patiently on the high bank at her bidding.
She goes back home with the full pitcher poised on her head, the shining brass pot in her left hand, holding the child with her right–she the tiny servant of her mother, grave with the weight of the household cares.