Stray Birds

Light in my heart the evening star of rest and then let the night whisper to me of love. 275 I am a child in the dark. I stretch my hands through the coverlet of night for thee, Mother. 276 The day of work is done. Hide my face in your arms, Mother. Let me dream. 277 The lamp of meeting burns long; it goes out in a moment at the parting. 278 One word keep for me in thy silence, O World, when I am dead, "I have loved." 279 We live in this world when we love it. 280 Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love. 281 I have seen thee as the half-awakened child sees his mother in the dusk of the dawn and then smiles and sleeps again. 282 I shall die again and again to know that life is inexhaustible. 283 While I was passing with the crowd in the road I saw thy smile from the balcony and I sang and forgot all noise. 284 Love is life in its fulness like the cup with its wine. 285 They light their own lamps and sing their own words in their temples. But the birds sing thy name in thine own morning light,--for thy name is joy. 286 Lead me in the centre of thy silence to fill my heart with songs. 287 Let them live who choose in their own hissing world of fireworks. My heart longs for thy stars, my God. 288 Love's pain sang round my life like the unplumbed sea, and love's joy sang like birds in its flowering groves. 289 Put out the lamp when thou wishest.