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“World was in the face of the beloved …” by Rainer Maria Rilke 🇦🇹 (4 Dec 1875 – 29 Dec 1926)
Translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell
World was in the face of the beloved—,
but suddenly it poured out and was gone:
world is outside, world can not be grasped.
​
Why didn’t I, from the full, beloved face
as I raised it to my lips, why didn’t I drink
world, so near that I couldn’t almost taste it?
​
Ah, I drank. Insatiably I drank.
But I was filled up also, with too much
world, and, drinking, I myself ran over.