She is afraid that she may fail in service to you.
But with a smile you watch her at her game.
The child sitting in the dust is your destined bride; her play will be stilled and deepened into love.
“What is there but the sky, O Sun, that can hold thine image?”
“I dream of thee, but to serve thee I can never hope,” the dewdrop wept and said, “I am too small to take thee unto me, great lord, and my life is all tears.”
“I illumine the limitless sky, yet I can yield myself up to a tiny drop of dew,” thus the Sun said; “I shall become but a sparkle of light and fill you, and your little life will be a laughing orb.”
Not for me is the love that knows no restraint, but like the foaming wine that having burst its vessel in a moment would run to waste.
Send me the love which is cool and pure like your rain that blesses the thirsty earth and fills the homely earthen jars.
Send me the love that would soak down into the centre of being, and from there would spread like the unseen sap through the branching tree of life, giving birth to fruits and flowers.
Send me the love that keeps the heart still with the fulness of peace.
The sun had set on the western margin of the river among the tangle of the forest.
The hermit boys had brought the cattle home, and sat round the fire to listen to the master, Guatama, when a strange boy came, and greeted him with fruits and flowers, and, bowing low at his feet, spoke in a bird-like voice—“Lord, I have come to thee to be taken into the path of the supreme Truth.
“Blessings be on thy head,” said the master.
“Of what clan art thou, my child? It is only fitting for a Brahmin to aspire to the highest wisdom.”
“Master,” answered the boy, “I know not of what clan I am. I shall go and ask my mother.”
Thus saying, Satyakāma took leave, and wading across the shallow stream, came back to his mother’s hut, which stood at the end of the sandy waste at the edge of the sleeping village.
The lamp burnt dimly in the room, and the mother stood at the door in the dark waiting for her son’s return.
She clasped him to her bosom, kissed him on his hair, and asked him of his errand to the master.
“What is the name of my father, dear mother?” asked the boy.
“It is only fitting for a Brahmin to aspire to the highest wisdom, said Lord Guatama to me.”