When that I lay in a mute agony,
I nothing saw nor heard nor felt nor thought,
The inner self, the quintessential me,
In that blind hour beyond all sense was brought
Hard against pain. I had no body, no mind,
Nought but the point that suffers joy or loss,
No eyes in sudden blackness to be blind,
No brain for swift regrets to run across.
But when you touched me, when your hot tears fell,
The point that had been nothing else but pain
Changed into rapture by a miracle,
In which all raptures known before were vain.
Thus loss which bared the utmost shivering nerve
For joy's precursor in the heart did serve.