Love-Song

by Ranier Maria Rilke


 
 
 
 
How shall I hold my soul, that it may not
be touching yours? How shall I lift it then
above you to where other things are waiting?
Ah, gladly would I lodge it, all-forgot,
with some lost thing the dark is isolating
on some remote and silent spot that, when
your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating.

You and me - all that lights upon us, though,
brings us together like a fiddle-bow
drawing one voice from two strings it glides along
Across what instruments have we been spanned?
And what violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest song.

 


 
 
 
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