The Home

    I paced alone on the road across the field while the sunset was hiding its last gold like a miser.

    The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed land, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent.

    Suddenly a boy's shrill voice rose into the sky. He traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush of the evening.

    His village home lay there at the end of the waste land, beyond the sugarcane field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and the slender areca palm, the coconut and the dark green jack-fruit trees.

    I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the starlight, and saw spread before me the darkened earth surrounding with her arms countless homes furnished with cradles and beds, mothers' hearts and evening lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that knows nothing of its value for the world.

    The Beginning

    "Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother.

    She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast, "you were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.

    "You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then."

    "You were enshrined with our household deity; in his worship I worshipped you."

    In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.

    "In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages."

    "When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it."

    "Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise."

    "Heaven's first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life and at last you have stranded on my heart.”

    "As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine."

    "For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these slender arms of mine?"

    The Further Bank

    I long to go over there to the further bank of the river.

    Where those boats are tied to the bamboo poles in a line; 

    Where men cross over in their boats in the morning with ploughs on their shoulders to till their far-away fields.

    Where the cowherds make their lowing cattle swim across to the riverside pasture; Whence they all come back home in the evening, leaving the jackals to howl in the island overgrown with weeds.

    Mother, if you don't mind, I should like to become the boatman of the ferry when I am grown up.

    They say there are strange pools hidden behind that high bank.

      Where flocks of wild ducks come when the rains are over, and thick reeds grow round the margins where water-birds lay their eggs; 

    Where snipes with their dancing tails stamp their tiny footprints upon the clean soft mud; 

    Where in the evening the tall grasses crested with white flowers invite the moonbeam to float upon their waves.

    Mother, if you don't mind, I should like to become the boatman of the ferryboat when I am grown up.

      I shall cross and cross back from bank to bank, and all the boys and girls of the village will wonder at me while they are bathing.

      When the sun climbs the mid sky and morning wears on to noon, I shall come running to you, saying “Mother, I am hungry!”

      When the day is done and the shadows cower under the trees, I shall come back in the dusk.

      I shall never go away from you into the town to work like father.

    Mother, if you don't mind, I should like to become the boatman of the ferryboat when I am grown up.

    Sympathy

    If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear, would you say "No" to me if I tried to eat from your dish?

    Would you drive me off, saying to me, "Get away, you naughty little puppy?”

    Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call me, and never let you feed me any more.

    If I were only a little green parrot, and not your baby, mother dear, would you keep me chained lest I should fly away?

    Would you shake your linger at me and say, "What an ungrateful wretch of a bird! It is gnawing at its chain day and night."

    Then go, mother, go! I will run away into the woods; I will never let you take me in your arms again.