The Gazelle

The Gazelle
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Enchanted being: how can the harmony of two
chosen words ever achieve the rhyme,
as with a sign, that comes and goes in you.
Out of your brow rise leaf and lyre,

and everything yours already runs as metaphor
through love songs, the words of which, soft
as rose petals, for the one who no longer reads,
laid upon the eyes, which he closes

so that he may see you: carried about as if
each slender leg were charged with leaps,
not to be fired as long as the neck

holds the head high in listening: as when, while
bathing in a dark forest, the bather interrupts herself:
the forest pool still reflected in her turning face.

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