“Every poor lady that came to me, that touched my hand, that drew a small part of my spirit from me to her—they were only shadows. Aurora, they were shadows of you! I was only seeking you out, as you were seeking me. You were seeking me, your own affinity. And if you let them keep me from you now, I think we shall die!”

“Why you keep trying to seek and encounter with me, lady?The only best thing I can do to stay alive now is to be invisible.”

“Passing stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you,You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my back, breast, hands, in return,I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again,I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”

“Seeking Your face and not only Your hand, I find You embracing me just as I am.”

“I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.”

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”