You who never arrived !

You who never arrived - Rainer Maria Rilke
- This is a poem by Rilke, who is considered one of the greatest 20th century poet, this poem was written in German and translated in English by Stephen Mitchell, I liked the poem and thought of sharing it.

You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved,
who were lost from the start,
I don't even know what songs would please you.
I have given up trying to recognize you
in the surging wave of the next moment.
All the immense images in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,longing.
An open window in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening...