songs grow fitful and languid give me your flute awhile.

I shall but play with it as the whim takes me,--now take it on my
lap, now touch it with my lips, now keep it by my side on the
grass.

But in the solemn evening stillness I shall gather flowers, to
deck it with wreaths, I shall fill it with fragrance; I shall
worship it with the lighted lamp.

Then at night I shall come to you and give you back your flute.

You will play on it the music of midnight when the lonely
crescent moon wanders among the stars.



XXIII

The poet's mind floats and dances on the waves of life amidst the
voices of wind and water.

Now when the sun has set and the darkened sky draws upon the sea
like drooping lashes upon a weary eye it is time to take away his
pen, and let his thoughts sink into the bottom of the deep amid
the eternal secret of that silence.



XXIV