The Gazelle

.

Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words

ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme

that pulses through you as your body stirs?

Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb,

.

and all your features pass in simile,through

the songs of love whose words, as light as rose-

petals, rest on the face of someone who 

has put his book away and shut his eyes:

.

to see you: tensed, as it each leg were a gun

loaded with leaps, but  not fired while your neck

holds your head still, listening: as when,

.

while swimming in some isolated place,

a girl hears leaves rustle, and turns to look:

the forest pool reflected in her face.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell

.