Hasten, O Time, and fling your long minutes behind you, for I have a dear one whom I await, and in me there is an insistent longing to lay my tired head upon his burning breast.
The sun has climbed to the height of the morning, and nothing now remains between me and the appointed hour of his coming but for the earth to turn once about the sun — and then I shall be on the hilltop, bare of everything but the memory of our last farewell, listening for the footsteps running up the slope, as though all motion had ceased from existence.
Why do you walk so slowly, O hours? By God, it seems to me that you will never bring me to the threshold
of tomorrow — and tomorrow is far... far indeed, for one whose patience has worn down to the point of wasting.
I have made for you, beloved, out of our little nest, out of this peaceful hut, a spreading garden, deep in shade, where cleanliness ripples and the small birds take shelter among its branches; and I have adorned myself too, as though I were about to set out for a party; and I have made
a partner in all this of our coquettish little girl, who has not ceased turning her eyes to the door each time I call to her, teasing: There now — "Papa" has come!
Skip over your tedious distances, O Time, and let me feel that my noble protector is near me, that I may bury my head between his arms, taking refuge in him, as my little daughter buries her head in my breast whenever she hears the barking
of a dog or the mewing of a cat.
Hasten, O Time, for my soul has wearied of people, and the exactions of people, and the artificial conventions of people; and it has wearied likewise of loneliness, and of the desolation of loneliness in the shadows of distance from the beloved and remoteness from his face.
Hasten, O Time, for I have spread my sail, and here is my ship upon the shining shore, awaiting the cherished husband, that I may reach with him the island of happiness...
Do you think I shall wander lost with him in the midst of this roaring ocean, or reach the island in safety!!