«I pardon all your sins — / but two I can’t abide: / You read poems in silence / and kiss aloud. So sin, blossom, be merry — / but take my advice: / a kiss, my darling, is not for the ear, / and music is not for the eyes.»
«Black as the pupil of an eye, sucking at light / like the pupil of an eye, I love you, far-sighted night. Give me the voice to sing of you, godmother of every hymn, / you in whose hand lie the bridles of the four winds. Calling on you, extolling you, I am no more than / a shell where the sea...»
«The heavens are low and drear, / But my spirit is high, it’s known. / You and I are so strangely near, / And each of us is alone. Pitiless is the path I have trod / And it leads me to death and the grave. / But I love myself as I do God, / And it’s love that my soul shall save. And...»
«I am exhausted by a weariness, / My soul wounded is, in blood... / Is there compassion really not on us, / Is there indeed on us no love? We do fulfill a will that is too strict, / As shadows, softly, trace without, ...»