es my heart.
Open the doors, make room for the morning light.
I am lost in you, wrapped in the folds of your caresses.
Free me from your spells, and give me back the manhood to offer
you my freed heart.

49

I hold her hands and press her to my breast.
I try to fill my arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet
smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes.
Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky?
I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in
my hands.
Baffled and weary I come back.
How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may
touch?

50

Love, my heart longs day and night for the meeting with you--for
the meeting that is like all-devouring death.
Sweep me away like a storm; take everything I have; break open my
sleep and plunder my dreams. Rob me of my world.
In that devastation, in the utter nakedness of spirit, let us
become one in beauty.
Alas for my vain desire! Where is this hope for union except in
thee, my God?

51

Then finish the last song and let us leave.
Forget this night when the night is no more.
Whom do I try to clasp in my arms? Dreams can never be made
captive.
My eager hands press emptiness to my heart and it bruises my
breast.

52

Why did the lamp go out?
I shaded it with my cloak to save it from the wind, that is why
the lamp went out.

Why did the flower fade?
I pressed it to my heart with anxious love, that is why the
flower faded.

Why did the stream dry up?
I put a dam across it to have it for my use, that is why the
stream dried up.

Why did the harp-string break?
I tried to force a note that was beyond its power, that is why
the harp-string is broken.

53

Why do you put me to shame with a look?
I have not come as a beggar.
Only for a passing hour I stood at the end of your courtyard
outside the garden hedge.
Why do you put me to shame with a look?

Not a rose did I gather from your garden, not a fruit did I
pluck.
I humbly took my shelter under the wayside shade where every
strange traveller may stand.
Not a rose did I pluck.

Yes, my feet were tired, and the shower of rain come down.
The winds cried out among the swaying bamboo branches.
The clouds ran across the sky as though in the flight from
defeat.
My feet were tired.

I know not what you thought of m