(An original German version can be found at: http://www.rilke.de/gedichte/herbsttag.htm; part of http://www.rilke.de [Internationalen Rilke Gesellschaft]; retrieved online, 2009.)
Lord: it is time. The summer was too much.
Lay your shadow across the sundials,
across the fields let the winds rush.
Command the last fruit to fullness.
Give it two more southlike days.
Urge it to finish there, and chase
This last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Who has no house now will build never.
Who is alone now will stay alone,
will wake, read, write long letters
and through back streets roam,
resless, when the leaves gust.
(Translated, 1984; revised very slightly 2002.)
NOTE: my German is limited, but this poem, because it was short and because of the nature imagery, quite inspired me. Of course, I was dating a guy at the time--the guy I dated in grad school, so I felt so alone, so very alone, and I've felt really estranged ever-since, like the character in contemporary U.S. poet Marilyn Hacker's exiles, who finally cries out, "I am an exile in my own land."