poem

Wie stieg das auf! Denn allen diesen Dingen

Und ihrer Schönheit — die unfruchtbar war —

Hingab ich mich in großer Sehnsucht ganz, 

Wie jetzt für das Anschaun von deinem Haar

Und zwischen deinen Lidern deisen Glanz!

Your Face . . . 

Your face was quite laden with dreams. I was silent and watched you with silent trembling. How it came back! That once in nights gone-by I gave myself fully

 

   to the moon and the too dearly loved valley, on whose desolate slopes the spindly trees stood far apart and between them went the low little clouds of mist

   and through this stillness the river made its ever fresh and ever strange silver-white waters rustle — how it came back!

   How it came back! For to all these things and their beauty — which was fruitless — I gave myself fully in such great desire as now [I feel] for the sight of your hair and between your eye-lids this fire! 

Hugo von Hofmannsthal