The Stream

Behold the stream! How merrily it flows right through the meadow, like the Milky Way!

’Twas sound asleep in the cradle of the clouds; opened its wondering eye in the lap of the mountains.

From the pebbles its graceful motion music strikes; its brows chaste and unsullied like the mirror!

Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily it flows; linked with itself, unlinked with all, it flows.

Around its track spring fashioned a fairyland: Narcissus bloomed, and tulip, and Jessamine.

The rose said temptingly: Stay with us here awhile; the rose-bud laughed and pulled the helm of its skirt.

Unmindful of these green-robed beauty-vendors, it cleft the desert and rent the breast of hill and dale.

Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily it flows; linked with itself, unlinked with all, it flows.

A hundred brooks from woods and meadows, from vales and gardens and villas cried: ‘O thou with whom accords the earth’s expanse!

Stricken with drought, we have fallen by the way; protect us from the pillage of the sandy waste!’

It opened its breast to the winds of the East and the West, clasping its weak and wailing fellow travelers.

Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily it flows; with a hundred thousand matchless pearls it flows.

The surging river went over dam dyke, went over the narrow gorge of valley, hill and glen,

Made one, like a torrent, each hollow and eminence, went over the king’s palace and rampart and field and orchard.

Passionate and fierce and sharp, restless and heart-inflaming each time it arrived at the New and went beyond the Old.

Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily it flows; linked with itself, unlinked with all, it flows.