Hyperion to Bellarmin
Diotima was from now on marvellously changed.
With joy I’d seen how since our love began the muted life had opened out in glances and lovely words, and her genial tranquillity had often met me as sparkling inspiration.
But how alien to us grows the beautiful soul when after its first blossoming, after the morning of its course, it must rise toward high noon! One barely knew the blissful child any more, so sublime and so sorrowful had she become.
Oh, how many times I lay before that grieving image of divinity and thought to weep away my soul in pain for her, and stood up in wonderment and myself full of all-powerful energies! A flame had risen to her eyes from her oppressed breast. Her bosom had grown for her too crowded with wishes and sorrows; that’s why the maiden’s thoughts were so glorious and bold. A new greatness, a visible power over all that could feel, held sway within her. She was a higher being. She belonged no more to mortal man.
O my Diotima, could I have imagined then how it would end?