I took my lyre and said: come now, my heavenly tortoise shell: become a speaking instrument.
Now the Earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery
May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.
What cannot be said will be wept.
The Moon and Pleiades have set, / Midnight is nigh, / The time is passing, passing, yet / Alone I lie.
When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me and a trembling seizes me all over.