We shall sit still in the dark in the rustle of leaves, and the
tired moon will shed pale rays on your window.
O traveller, what sleepless spirit has touched you from the heart
of the mid-night?
64
I spent my day on the scorching hot dust of the road.
Now, in the cool of the evening, I knock at the door of the inn.
It is deserted and in ruins.
A grim _ashath_ tree spreads its hungry clutching roots
through the gaping fissures of the walls.
Days have been when wayfarers came here to wash their weary feet.
They spread their mats in the courtyard in the dim light of the
early moon, and sat and talked of strange lands.
They work refreshed in the morning when birds made them glad, and
friendly flowers nodded their heads at them from the wayside.
But no lighted lamp awaited me when I came here.
The black smudges of smoke left by many a forgotten evening lamp
stare, like blind eyes, from the wall.
Fireflies flit in the bush near the dried-up pond, and bamboo
branches fling their shadows on the grass-grown path.
I am the guest of no one at the end of my day.
The long night is before me, and I am tired.
65
Is that your call again?
The evening has come. Weariness clings around me like the arms
of entreating love.
Do you call me?
I had given all my day to you, cruel mistress, must you also rob
me of my night?
Somewhere there is an end to everything, and the loneness of the
dark is one's own.
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