56
I was one among many women busy with the obscure daily tasks of
the household.
Why did you single me out and bring me away from the cool shelter
of our common life?
Love unexpressed in sacred. It shines like gems in the gloom of
the hidden heart. In the light of the curious day it looks
pitifully dark.
Ah, you broke through the cover of my heart and dragged my
trembling love into the open place, destroying for ever the
shady corner where it hid its nest.
The other women are the same as ever.
No one has peeped into their inmost being, and they themselves
know not their own secret.
Lightly they smile, and weep, chatter, and work. Daily they go
to the temple, light their lamps, and fetch water from the
river.
I hoped my love would be saved from the shivering shame of the
shelterless, but you turn your face away.
Yes, your path lies open before you, but you have cut off my
return, and left me stripped naked before the world with its
lidless eyes staring night and day.
57
I plucked your flower, O world!
I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked.
When the day waned and it darkened, I found that the flower had
faded, but the pain remained.
More flowers will come to you with perfume and pride, O world!
But my time for flower-gathering is over, and through the dark
night I have not my rose, only the pain remains.
58
One morning in the flower garden a blind girl came to offer me a
flower chain in the cover of a lotus leaf.
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