Could you be my mother, O waves?

Do you, like her, roam the distant shores, striving hard to return to where I am?

Or have you, like her heart, one that takes on no colors but the colors of my soul, keeps pace with nothing but the stirrings of my spirit, is content only with what contents me, and angered only by what angers me?

Have you, like her impulses, compassion and loftiness? Do you gather your drops together and keep the waters company in their loneliness — as my mother gathers up the fears of my heart and the tremblings of my spirit, to lull all my dreams?

Have you tears, O waves? Do you shed them upon my sickbed, when illness sweeps over my young heart? Are your tears abundant? Are they anguished? Are they hot, like hers?

Or have you contented smiles, flooding me with an overflow that never ends, when life dawns upon my brow in health and success?

Could you become my mother, O waves? Could you become like her — never sleeping except upon the murmurings of prayer, for the deliverance of my fettered spirit, and never rising except upon sweet hope, for the happiness of my despairing soul?

Have you feelings like hers, kindling with intuition of my inner states, even were I in the farthest of lands?

Do you alone know my pain? Do you alone know my joy? Do you alone sense my sickness — so that your spirit sobs in aching silence?

Have you, like her supplication, rapture and height?

Do you carry love in your breast for the birds and the flowers and the air? Do you pray for the children of others for the sake of your own children, and show mercy to the daughters of the universe for the sake of your daughters?

Could you be my mother, O plains? Would you give me the springs? Would you watch over the blossoms? Would you give me the grasses — and then ask nothing of me in return? Would you transform the dust before my eyes, till it becomes light and gleam?

As my mother transforms the darknesses of my soul into cheer and radiance?

Could you become my mother, O stars? Would you scatter your light in my heart, and engrave your splendor in my ribs?

And light for me the realms of darkness? Would you long for my presence in the sky?

And call my name through the firmament, and weary the ether with my mention, every morning and evening? Does pain touch you, and you smile that it has not touched me?

Does despair sweep over you, and you give thanks that it has not swept over me? Do you attain your wishes, and think of my wishes; do you take life's gifts, and hope for gifts for me?

Could you be my mother, O sun? Are your golden threads dyed with tenderness? Do your radiant shoulders stir with love? Is your love everlasting, never perishing before the sunset, never fading on the horizon? Is your tenderness generous — never hiding behind the clouds, never wrapped in the dark?

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Away... away, O waves...

And vanish, O plains, from my ailing imagination.

And take the earth and the sun and the stars.

Oh, woe is me — how shall I search for my mother's heart

in the world of earth and sky!!