In the years when we were <br />all children, this inclining <br />to be alone so much was gentle; <br />others' time passed fighting, <br />and one had one's faction, <br />one's near, one's far-off place, <br />a path, an animal, a picture. <br /> <br />And I still imagined, that life <br />would always keep providing <br />for one to dwell on things within, <br />Am I within myself not in what's greatest? <br />Shall what's mine no longer soothe <br />and understand me as a child? <br /> <br />Suddenly I'm as if cast out, <br />and this solitude surrounds me <br />as something vast and unbounded, <br />when my feeling, standing on the hills <br />of my breasts, cries out for wings <br />or for an end. <br /> <br /> <br />Translated by Edward Snow<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/girl-s-lament/
