I saw you in a dream, and joy filled every fiber of my being; delight perfumed the space of my soul, and gladness ran like electricity through the hollows of my ribs. And when the dream's wishes and its hopes faded away, I found no trace of your tenderness, no sign of your affection. Those wishes were scattered as the shimmer of dusk is scattered, and those hopes melted away as the mist melts before the face of the sun, and as the little leaves of the trees drop before the clamor of the storm.

I saw you in a dream, O mother!.. and I wished the dream might turn into waking; I wished that dreams and hopes had no term; I longed for the wishes and desires of mankind to come true, so that my own wishes and desires might come true; I wished the sea would flow back to empty into the brook, and the sun draw its heat from the heavenly bodies. But the dream will not turn into waking; hopes are still swathed in pains and cloaked in woes; and man will never attain what he seeks and desires — even as the brook pursues its slow course to empty into the river, and the river into the roaring, dreadful sea; and even as the sun lights our earth with its enchanting rays and bestows them upon the planets, so that the heart of space is studded with them.

And when the armies of sickness fell upon me with their battalions in all bitterness, and my body began to be seared with pains, I looked about me and did not see your beloved figure among those who surrounded my bed, nor did I hear, among the many voices, your sweet and tender voice. I felt as though my heart had suddenly turned into a jar of tears that rose up to my eyes and began to stream from them in torrents; and with a voice broken by gasps and muffled by sighs I called you by the sweetest of names, and left my

calls in the keeping of the ether...

And when misfortunes and woes piled upon me, and despair and hopelessness seeped into the depths of my soul, I confided to paper all the hidden things of my heart, and it was as if a heavy load were lifted from my shoulder; I breathed in relief, for my heart had almost burst with what it concealed.

And when my heart grew desolate of the love of men; when the beats of this heart collided with the sorrow of life and the pains of existence; when the fearful flood

of pains engulfed me and dragged me down to the depths of the dreadful deep — I looked up to your great heart and saw it a stream whose waters of love and tenderness never run dry. I saw a love lofty in its aims, noble in its purposes, gentle in its ends, free of self-seeking motives however varied their shapes and however many their kinds. I saw honorable sacrifice take living form in that pure, true love. I saw in your heart, O mother!... a noble, immortal love which the peoples of the earth hold sacred and the gods of heaven bless.