To find,
when life is in decline, the first ray of light
that shone upon it: a friend. This is the goodness
that I have been given.
Like me and unlike me, rebellious
and docile. I keep him
near me to breathe like
a child born hopeless—
a tender mother.
Soon he will go off on his way
he will go, with doubt and difficulty. He will leave me
To the anguish of my downhill years
With the chaste sweetness of a kiss.
But, if time shall bring its terrors,
Then towards peaceful joy I'll turn my mind
for him today.
“When The Thought of You”
When the thought of you follows me
in the woods, where from time to time
I shelter from my horrors for the day, sweetness
strikes me still as a statue.
Then I arise, resuming my life.
Everything is distant from me, youth,
glory; others with their other care turn me strange.
But that thought of you, that you are alive,
makes me all right. Oh immense
and almost inhuman tenderness!