Woman in Love by Rainer Maria Rilke

“That is my window. Just now 
I have so softly wakened. 
I thought that I would float. 
How far does my life reach, 
and where does the night begin 

I could think that everything 
was still me all around; 
transparent like a crystal’s 
depths, darkened, mute. 

I could keep even the stars 
within me; so immense 
my heart seems to me; so willingly 
it let him go again. 

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold. 
Like something strange, undreamt-of, 
my fate now gazes at me. 

For what, then, am I stretched out 
beneath this endlessness, 
exuding fragrance like a meadow, 
swayed this way and that, 

calling out and frightened 
that someone will hear the call, 
and destined to disappear 
inside some other life.”

—	Woman in Love by Rainer Maria Rilke