It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not. - Kenneth Rexroth

Love slays what we have been,
That we may be what we were not.

from “The Dragon and the Unicorn

The holiness of the real
Is always there, accessible
In total immanence. The nodes
Of transcendence coagulate
In you, the experiencer,
And in the other, the lover.

Now I know surely and forever, However much I have blotted our Waking love, its memory is still there. And I know the web, the net, The blind and crippled bird. For then, for One brief instant it was not blind, nor Trapped, not crippled. For one heart beat the Heart was free and moved itself. O love, I who am lost and damned with words, Whose words are a business and an art, I have no words. These words, this poem, this Is all confusion and ignorance. But I know that coached by your sweet heart, My heart beat one free beat and sent Through all my flesh the blood of truth.