Ask the last fruits to ripen on the vine;

give them further two more summer days
to bring about perfection and to raise
the final sweetness in the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will establish none,
whoever lives alone now will live on long alone,

will waken, read, and write long letters,
wander up and down the barren paths
the parks expose when the leaves are blown.

– William Gass, "Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problem of Translation" (Knopf)