encounter

We went some where in space I dont know where -- I was conscious of starlight & of hearing the sea below us. You had taken the form I think of a great serpent, but I am not quite sure ... & your lips touched mine. We melted into one another till we formed only one being, a being greater than ourselves who felt all & knew all with double intensity -- the clock striking 11 broke the spell & as we separated it felt as if life was being drawn away from me through my chest with almost physical pain ... Material union is but a pale shadow compared to it.

-- Maud Gonne Letter to William Butler Yeats