.
Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words
ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme
that pulses through you as your body stirs?
Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb,
.
and all your features pass in simile,through
the songs of love whose words, as light as rose-
petals, rest on the face of someone who
has put his book away and shut his eyes:
.
to see you: tensed, as it each leg were a gun
loaded with leaps, but not fired while your neck
holds your head still, listening: as when,
.
while swimming in some isolated place,
a girl hears leaves rustle, and turns to look:
the forest pool reflected in her face.
.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell
.
