Oh, hasten not this loving act, Rapture where self and not-self meet: My life has been the awaiting you, Your footfall was my own heart's beat.

The speaker pleads for slowness and attentiveness at the threshold of intimacy: “hasten not” frames love as an act whose value lies in its deliberate unfolding. The phrase “where self and not-self meet” suggests an erotic or spiritual union that temporarily dissolves the boundary between two identities, producing “rapture” as a kind of heightened consciousness. The latter lines recast desire as destiny: a whole life becomes “awaiting you,” and the beloved’s approach is heard as the speaker’s own heartbeat—implying that longing has been internal, constitutive, and self-defining. The effect is to portray love not as an external event but as the fulfillment of an inner rhythm.