A Vanished Year

And you wait, you wait for that one thing that will infinitely enlarge

your life; the gigantic, the stupendous, the awakening of

stones, depths turned round toward you

The volumes bound in rust and gold flicker dimly on the shelves; and 

you think of lands traveled across, of paintings, of the clothes

of women found and lost.

And then suddenly you know  it was then.  You rise, and before

you stands the fear and prayer and shape of a vanished year.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, "Memory" translated by Edward Snow