Classic Poem

Once you were always calling me,
Calling me when I could not answer,
Urging me where I could not follow,
So that I wished I had been born
Without desire,
As a stone.
But now many days you have left me
And in the silence I have learned your meaning;
For a part of me is gone when you are gone,
And I am less, and the world is less.

Oh, let me have my longing back again!
Now gladly I will bear it;
Kindle me again, desire; return to me, return!