It would be good to reminisce <br />of all that's lost from childhood afternoons, <br />can they return to me, I miss <br />those endless hours that are now in ruins. <br /> <br />It does return now, gently, still <br />perhaps in all the drops of a warm rain <br />yet we've forgotten what it will <br />remind us now of riches and no bane <br />of seeing and just living without care <br />like creatures yet as humans with no fear <br />and filled up to the locks of children's hair <br />a figure of a Thing, it would appear. <br /> <br />The shepherd's loneliness then, in the end <br />weighed down with endless distances today <br />and called as if ordained, touched by a friend <br />a lengthy thread of images, astray <br />in which it is no use simply to dwell <br />there is no memory for us to know <br />and to a stranger, childhood thoughts will tell <br />of afternoons, where life itself was slow. <br /> <br /> <br />Written 1906 in Paris <br /> <br />My version of a translation.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/childhood-by-rilke-translation/
