"How shall I go with peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing who walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry any longer.
The sea that calls all things unto me calls me and I must embark.
For to stay though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize in a mould.
Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.
And along and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
These things He said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret.”
