Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/80



wheelbarrows of propaganda from continent to continent—is this going to be the climax of a poet's life? It seems to me like an evil dream, from which I occasionally wake up in the dead of night and grope about in the bed asking myself in consternation— "Where is my music?”

It is lost, but I had no right to lose it, for I did not earn it with the sweat of my brow; it was a gift to me, which I could deserve if I knew how to love it, You know I have said somewhere that "God praises me, when I do good; but God loves me, when I sing”. Praise is reward; it can be measured against the work you render; but love is above all rewards ; it is measureless.

The poet who is true to his mission, reaps his harvest of love; but the poet, who strays into the path of the good, is dismissed with applause. So I am to found my International University—a great work! But I lose my little song—which loss can never be made up to me. How I wish I could find back my reed and be contemptuously ignored by the busy and the wise as a hopeless ne’er-do-well!

When I know for certain, that I shall never be able to go back to that sweet obscurity, which is the birthplace of flowers and bird-songs, I feel home-sick. It is a world which is so near and yet so far away; so easy of access and yet so immensely difficult, Happiness we go on missing in our life, because it is so simple.