by Rainer Maria Rilke  — from his French language volume Migration des Forces— 

Comfort me, wherever you are—

loneliness quickly exhausts me!

So that if I lay my head across this path

it will seem to be softened by you.

Is it not possible, that even from afar

you might stretch your gentle breath?

—or regret my absence with such purity,

these pebbles then are covered with down?

*
—a new translation by j. petroshius