[7] There they go! The sky arches over like an endless burning roof of bronze, and the sun shoots, and shooting, riddles with arrows of steel the sea of sand. There they go, with eyes in which thirst has kindled a strange fire, gazing ahead to that oasis of love which yonder, clearly rises in its deluding beauty. But now blows the simoon of death: the shattering whirlwind envelops them, prostrates them; sated, it rolls upon itself and falls in exhaustion.… And once again the sun shoots in the fiery sky.… And over the exterminated generation the sand sleeps its peaceful, tranquil sleep. [8] I want an endless kiss, that shall last an entire life and sate my desire! My blood seethes. Slake it with your kiss, kiss me so! Close your ears to the sound of the world, and kiss me, beloved! Live for me alone, for my life only, only for my love! [9] The stars have all come out, and have broidered the pure veil of heaven with the whitest of lilies. But the most beautiful of all I do not yet see. One star is missing. It is you!… Open your window and come! [10] Ah, who can express, enslaved and impotent soul, what the lips do not speak, what the hand cannot write. Clasping your cross, you burn, you bleed, only soon to behold in the mire that which had dazzled you.… Thought seethes; it is a whirlwind of lava: Form, cold and compact, is a sepulchre of snow.… And the heavy word stifles the fragile Idea which, like perfume and light, flew glittering about. Who can find the mould in which to cast expression? Ah! who can speak the infinite anxieties of our dreams? The heavens that flee from the hand that is raised? And mute ire? And this wretched world? And voiceless despair? And the words of faith that were never spoken? And the confessions of love that die in one’s throat?