The Woman who Loves

Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
    And lose myself--for to you I belong.
    The hope that hitherto I have denied
    Imperious comes to me as from your side
    Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.

    Those times: the times when I was quite alone
    By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
    My silence was the quiet of a stone
    Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.

    But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
    Something within me has been freed--something
    That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
    Which rises now within me and commands
    And gives my poor warm life into your hands
    Who know not what I was that Yesterday.

        Rainer Maria Rilke
        (tr. Jessie Lamont)