HEARKEN to the reed-flute how it complains
Lamenting its banishment from its home:
"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast striving to give vent to sighs
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return.
My wailing is heard in every throng
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings
But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes
Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear.
Body is not veiled from soul neither soul from body
Yet no man hath ever seen a soul."