Never yet have I found the woman by whom I should like to have children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love thee, O Eternity!

For I love thee, O Eternity!

If my virtue be a dancer’s virtue, and if I have often sprung with both feet into golden-emerald rapture:

If my wickedness be a laughing wickedness, at home among rose-banks and hedges of lilies:

—For in laughter is all evil present, but it is sanctified and absolved by its own bliss:⁠—

And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, everybody a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega!⁠—

Oh, how could I not be ardent for Eternity, and for the marriage-ring of rings⁠—the ring of the return?