By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But
it is otherwise with thy love, which is greater than theirs, and thou
keepest me free. Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me
alone. But day passes by after day and thou are not seen.
If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart--thy
love for me still waits for my love.
V
I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this
life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery
like a bud in the forest at midnight? When in the morning I looked upon
the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that
the inscrutable without name and form had taken me in its arms in the
form of my own mother. Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as
ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know I shall love
death as well. The child cries out when from the right breast the mother
takes it away to find in the very next moment its consolation in the
left one.