In the Second Elegy, Rilke writes, "Lovers, if they knew how, might utter / wondrous things in the midnight air." (Liebende könnten, verstünden sie's, in der Nachtluft / wunderlich reden.)[30] He depicts "the inadequacy of ordinary lovers" and contrasts a feminine form of "sublime love" and a masculine "blind animal passion".[31]:p.96 At the time the first elegies were written, Rilke often "expressed a longing for human companionship and affection, and then, often immediately afterwards, asking whether he could really respond to such companionship if it were offered to him ..."[31]:p.91 He notices a "decline in the lives of lovers ... when they began to receive, they also began to lose the power of giving".[31]:p.103 Later, during World War I, he would lament that "the world has fallen into the hands of men".[31]:p.97[32] In the face of death, life and love is not cheap and meaningless and Rilke asserted that great lovers are able to recognize all three (life, love, and death) as part of a unity.[31]:p.105 Rilke asserted that the true meaning of love could be understood through death providing love a meaning in this unity—that "the nature of every ultimate love ... is only able to reach the loved one in the infinite".[31]:pp.103,122[33]:p.125