Page:Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (1918).djvu/79

 MADNESS

She thinks: I am—Have you not seen?

Who are you then, Marie?

I am a Queen, I am a Queen!

To your knee, to your knee!

And then she weeps: I was—a child—

Who were you then, Marie?

Know you that I was no man's child,

Poor and in rags—said she.

And then a Princess I became

To whom men bend their knees;

To princes things are not the same

As those a beggar sees.

And those things which have made you great

Came to you, tell me, when?

One night, one night, one night quite late,

Things became different then.

I walked the lane which presently

With strung chords seemed to bend;

Then Marie became Melody

And danced from end to end.

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