But when morning dropped anchor at the rim of the East, the beggar in me leapt and cried:
“Blessed am I that the deaf night denied me-that its coffer was empty.”
He cried, “O Life, O Light, you are precious! and precious is the joy that at last has known you!”
Sanatan was telling his beads by the Ganges when a Brahmin in rags came to him and said, “Help me, I am poor!”
“My alms-bowl is all that is my own,” said Sanatan, “I have given away everything I had.”
“But my lord Shiva came to me in my dreams,” said the Brahmin, “and counselled me to come to you.”
Sanatan suddenly remembered he had picked up a stone without price among the pebbles on the river-bank, and thinking that some one might need it hid it in the sands.
He pointed out the spot to the Brahmin, who wondering dug up the stone.
The Brahmin sat on the earth and mused alone till the sun went down behind the trees, and cowherds went home with their cattle.
Then he rose and came slowly to Sanatan and said,“Master, give me the least fraction of the wealth that disdains all the wealth of the world.”
And he threw the precious stone into the water.
Time after time I came to your gate with raised hands, asking for more and yet more.
You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden excess.
I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and broke them when tired; till the wrecks and the hoard of your gifts grew immense, hiding you, and the ceaseless expectation wore my heart out.
Take, oh take-has now become my cry.
Shatter all from this beggar"s bowl: put out this lamp of the importunate watcher: hold my hands, raise me from the still-gathering heap of your gifts into the bare infinity of your uncrowded presence.
You have set me among those who are defeated.
I know it is not for me to win, nor to leave the game.
I shall plunge into the pool although but to sink to the bottom.
I shall play the game of my undoing.
I shall stake all I have and when I lose my last penny I shall stake myself, and then I think I shall have won through my utter defeat.
A smile of mirth spread over the sky when you dressed my heart in rags and sent her forth into the road to beg.