O MY CHILD, my infant Shiva, self-forgetful, at every step of thy wild dance things totter and tumble, thy gatherings are scattered, and a whirlwind of destruction spreads the dust of thy trampled toys in the sky. From desolation to desolation thy world finds its release; the stream of thy play ever flows through the burst bond of thy playthings; revelling in penury thou buildest thy creation with trifles, in the next moment to forget it for a mere caprice; with the sky for thy robe, all covers thou flingest away from thy limbs. With thy riches hidden in thy being thou dwellest in a world bare of all shame and show and thought for self, in a destitution that never makes thee poor, and the dust that soils not thy purity, the sweep of thine own dance ever wiping thee white. O Shiva, the Child, know me for thy lover, thy disciple in dancing, teach me the wisdom of unconcern, the game of breaking of toys, teach me how to guide my steps to the time of thy footfalls, how to move free by rending the webs of one's own weaving.
FREEDOM FROM fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!-fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams; Freedom from the burden of ages, bending your head, breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future; Freedom from shackles of slumber wherewith you fasten yourself to night's stillness, mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous path; Freedom from the anarchy of destiny, whose sails are weakly yielded to blind uncertain winds, and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as Death; Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world, where movements are started through brainless wires, repeated through mindless habits; where figures wait with patient obedience for a master of show to be stirred into a moment's mimicry of life.
