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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poems
+
+Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+Translator: Jessie Lemont
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2012 [EBook #38594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+by
+
+RANIER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+Translated by Jessie Lamont
+
+With an Introduction by H.T.
+
+
+New York
+
+Tobias A. Wright
+
+1918
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+
+AUGUSTE RODIN
+
+THROUGH WHOM I CAME TO KNOW
+
+RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+POEMS OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Acknowledgment
+
+To the Editors of Poetry--A magazine of Verse, and Poet Lore, the
+translator is indebted for permission to reprint certain poems in this
+book--also to the compilers of the following anthologies--Amphora II
+edited by Thomas Bird Mosher--The Catholic Anthology of World Poetry
+selected by Carl van Doren.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_Introduction:_
+  The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+_First Poems:_
+  Evening
+  Mary Virgin
+
+_The Book of Pictures:_
+  Presaging
+  Autumn
+  Silent Hour
+  The Angels
+  Solitude
+  Kings in Legends
+  The Knight
+  The Boy
+  Initiation
+  The Neighbour
+  Song of the Statue
+  Maidens I
+  Maidens II
+  The Bride
+  Autumnal Day
+  Moonlight Night
+  In April
+  Memories of a Childhood
+  Death
+  The Ashantee
+  Remembrance
+  Music
+  Maiden Melancholy
+  Maidens at Confirmation
+  The Woman who Loves
+  Pont du Carrousel
+  Madness
+  Lament
+  Symbols
+
+_New Poems:_
+  Early Apollo
+  The Tomb of a Young Girl
+  The Poet
+  The Panther
+  Growing Blind
+  The Spanish Dancer
+  Offering
+  Love Song
+  Archaic Torso of Apollo
+
+_The Book of Hours:_
+
+  _The Book of a Monk's Life_
+    I Live my Life in Circles
+    Many have Painted Her
+    In Cassocks Clad
+    Thou Anxious One
+    I Love My Life's Dark Hours
+
+  _The Book of Pilgrimage_
+    By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream
+    All Those Who Seek Thee
+    In a House Was One
+    Extinguish My Eyes
+    In the Deep Nights
+
+  _The Book of Poverty and Death_
+    Her Mouth
+    Alone Thou Wanderest
+    A Watcher of Thy Spaces
+
+
+
+
+THE POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+    εἶσὶ γὰρ οὖν, οἳ ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς κυοῦσιν
+
+                                     Plato
+
+The supreme problem of every age is that of finding its consummate
+artistic expression. Before this problem every other remains of
+secondary importance. History defines and directs its physical course,
+science cooperates in the achievement of its material aims, but Art
+alone gives to the age its spiritual physiognomy, its ultimate and
+lasting expression.
+
+The process of Art is on the one hand sensuous, the conception having
+for its basis the fineness of organization of the senses; and on the
+other hand it is severely scientific, the value of the creation being
+dependent upon the craftsmanship, the mastery over the tool, the
+technique.
+
+Art, like Nature, its great and only reservoir for all time past and all
+time to come, ever strives for elimination and selection. It is severe
+and aristocratic in the application of its laws and impervious to appeal
+to serve other than its own aims. Its purpose is the symbolization of
+Life. In its sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment,
+the serene, final, and imperturbable solitude which is the ultimate
+criterion of all great things created.
+
+To speak of Poetry is to speak of the most subtle, the most delicate,
+and the most accurate instrument by which to measure Life.
+
+Poetry is reality's essence visioned and made manifest by one endowed
+with a perception acutely sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and
+gifted with a power to shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the
+reaction to Life's phenomena. The poet moulds that which appears
+evanescent and ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values.
+In this act of creation he serves eternity.
+
+Poetry, in especial lyrical poetry, must be acknowledged the supreme
+art, culminating as it does in a union of the other arts, the musical,
+the plastic, and the pictorial.
+
+The most eminent contemporary poets of Europe have, each in accordance
+with his individual temperament, reflected in their work the spiritual
+essence of our age, its fears and failures, its hopes and high
+achievements: Maeterlinck, with his mood of resignation and his
+retirement into a dusky twilight where his shadowy figures move
+noiselessly like phantoms in fate-laden dimness; Dehmel, the worshipper
+of will, with his passion for materiality and the beauty of all things
+physical and tangible; Verhaeren, the visionary of a new vitality, who
+sees in the toilers of fields and factories the heroic gesture of our
+time and who might have written its great epic of industry but for the
+overwhelming lyrical mood of his soul.
+
+Until a few years ago, known only to a relatively small community on the
+continent but commanding an ever increasing attention which has borne
+his name far beyond the boundary of his country, the personality of
+Rainer Maria Rilke stands to-day beside the most illustrious poets of
+modern Europe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The background against which the figure of Rainer Maria Rilke is
+silhouetted is so varied, the influences which have entered into his
+life are so manifold, that a study of his work, however slight, must
+needs take into consideration the elements through which this poet has
+matured into a great master.
+
+Prague, the city in which Rilke was born in 1875, with its sinister
+palaces and crumbling towers that rose in the early Middle Ages and have
+reached out into our time like the threatening fingers of mighty hands
+which have wielded swords for generations and which are stained with the
+blood of many wounds of many races; the city where amid grey old ruins
+blonde maidens are at play or are lost in reverie in the green cool
+parks and shady gardens with which the Bohemian capital abounds, this
+Prague of mingled grotesqueness and beauty gave to the young boy his
+first impressions.
+
+There is a period in the life of every artist when his whole being seems
+lost in a contemplation of the surrounding world, when the application
+to work is difficult, like the violent forcing of something that is
+awaiting its time. This is the time of his dream, as sacred as the days
+of early spring before wind and rain and light have touched the fruits
+of the fields, when there is a tense bleak silence over the whole of
+nature, in which is wrapped the strength of storms and the glow of the
+summer's sun. This is the time of his deepest dream, and upon this dream
+and its guarding depends the final realization of his life's work.
+
+The young graduate of the Gymnasium was to enter upon the career of an
+army officer in accordance with the traditions of the family, an old
+noble house which traces its lineage far back to Carinthian ancestry.
+His inclinations, however, pointed so decisively in the direction of the
+finer arts of life that he left the Military Academy after a very short
+attendance to devote himself to the study of philosophy and the history
+of art.
+
+As one turns the pages of Rilke's first small book of poems, published
+originally under the title _Larenopfer_, in the year 1895, and which
+appeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name _Erste
+Gedichte_, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in the
+presentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovingly
+over the dream of his boyhood. As the title indicates, these poems are a
+tribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town.
+Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme of
+almost every one of these poems. The meadows, the maidens, the dark
+river in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising like
+grey mists are seen with a wonderment, the great well-spring of all
+poetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through all these
+poems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude for
+the ability to thus vision the world, to be sunk in the music of all
+things. "Without is everything that I feel within myself, and without
+and within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable."
+
+These pictures of town and landscape are never separated from their
+personal relation to the poet. He feels too keenly his dependence upon
+them, as a child views flowers and stars as personal possessions. Not
+until later was he to reach the height of an impersonal objectivity in
+his art. What distinguishes these early poems from similar adolescent
+productions is the restraint in the presentation, the economy and
+intensity of expression and that quality of listening to the inner voice
+of things which renders the poet the seer of mankind.
+
+The second book of poems appeared two years later and like the first
+volume _Traumgekrönt_ is full of the music that is reminiscent of the
+mild melancholy of the Bohemian folk-songs, in whose gentle rhythms the
+barbaric strength of the race seems to be lulled to rest as the waves of
+a far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. The themes of
+_Traumgekrönt_ are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environment
+of Prague and some of the most beautiful poems are luminous pictures of
+villages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June, out of which
+rises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing.
+In these first two volumes the poet is satisfied with painting in words,
+full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world. From this period dates
+the small poem _Evening_, which seems to have been sketched by a
+Japanese painter, so clear and colourful is its texture, so precious and
+precise are its outlines.
+
+With _Advent_ and _Mir Zur Feier_, both published within the following
+three years, a phase of questioning commences, a dim desire begins to
+stir to reach out into the larger world "deep into life, out beyond
+time." Whereas the early poems were characterized by a tendency to turn
+away from the turmoil of life--in fact, the concrete world of reality
+does not seem to exist--there is noticeable in these two later volumes
+an advance toward life in the sense that the poet is beginning to
+approach and to vision some of its greatest symbols.
+
+Throughout the entire work of Rilke, in his poetry as well as in his
+interpretations of painting and sculpture, there are two elements that
+constitute the cornerstones in the structure of his art. If, as has been
+said with a degree of verity, Nietzsche was primarily a musician whose
+philosophy had for its basis and took its ultimate aspects from the
+musical quality of his artistic endowment, it may be maintained with an
+equal amount of truth that Rilke is primarily a painter and sculptor
+whose poetry rests upon the fundaments of the pictorial and plastic
+arts.
+
+Up to the time of the publication of these volumes, Rilke's poems
+possessed a quietude, a stillness suggested in the straight unbroken yet
+delicate lines of the picture which he portrays and in the soft, almost
+unpulsating rhythm of his words. The approach of evening or nightfall,
+the coming of dawn, the change of the seasons, the slow changes of light
+into darkness and of darkness into light, in short, the most silent yet
+greatest metamorphoses in the external aspects of nature form the
+contents of many of these first poems. The inanimate object and the
+living creature in nature are not seen in the sharp contours of their
+isolation; they are viewed and interpreted in the atmosphere that
+surrounds them, in which they are enwrapped and so densely veiled that
+the outlines are only dimly visible, be that atmosphere the mystic grey
+of northern twilight or the dark velvety blue of southern summer nights.
+In _Advent_, the experience of the atmosphere becomes an experience in
+his innermost soul and, therefore, all things become of value to him
+only in so far as they partake of the atmosphere, as they are seen in a
+peculiar air and distance. This first phase in Rilke's work may be
+defined as the phase of reposeful nature.
+
+To this sphere of relaxation and restfulness in which the objects are
+static and are changed only as the surrounding atmosphere affects them,
+the second phase in the poet's development adds another element, which
+later was to grow into dimensions so powerful, so violently breaking
+beyond the limitations of simple expression in words that it could only
+find its satisfaction in a dithyrambic hymn to the work of the great
+plastic artist of our time, to the creations of Auguste Rodin. This
+second element is that which the French sculptor in a different medium
+has carried to perfection. It is the element of gesture, of dramatic
+movement.
+
+This might seem the appropriate place in which to speak of Rilke's
+monograph on the art of Rodin. To do so would, however, be an undue
+anticipation, for it will be necessary to trace Rilke's development
+through several transitions before the value of his contact with the
+work of Rodin can be fully measured.
+
+The gesture, the movement begins in _Advent_ and _Celebration_ to
+disturb the stillness prevailing in the first two volumes of poems. Even
+here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of
+wind over a quiet sea; and gentle beings make this first gesture,
+children and young women at play, singing, dancing or at prayer.
+
+Particularly in the cycle _Songs of the Maidens_ in the book
+_Celebration_, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic
+background of the landscape against which the gesture of longing or
+expectation is seen and felt. It is the impatience to burst into
+blossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these _Songs of the
+Maidens_ with the tenseness of suspense. _The Prayers of the Maidens to
+Mary_ have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with the
+ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly
+Virgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love and
+motherhood. This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued and
+is only heard like the cadence of a far off dream:
+
+    "How shall I go on tiptoe
+     From childhood to Annunciation
+     Through the dim twilight
+     Into Thy Garden?"
+
+Mention should be made of some prose writings which Rilke published in
+the year 1898 and shortly afterward. They are _Two Stories of Prague_,
+_The Touch of Life_ and _The Last_; three volumes of short stories; a
+two-act drama, _The Daily Life_, points to a strong Maeterlinck
+influence, and finally _Stories of God_. With both beauty of detail and
+problematic interest, the short stories show an incoherence of treatment
+and a lack of dramatic co-ordination easily conceivable in a poet who is
+essentially lyrical and who at that time had not mastered the means of
+technique to give to his characters the clear chiselling of the epic
+form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A sojourn in Russia and especially the acquaintance with the novels of
+Dostoievsky became potent factors in Rilke's development and served to
+deepen creations which without this influence might have terminated in a
+grandiose æsthesia.
+
+Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as
+springing from an ethical impulse and as having for their motive power
+and _raison d'être_ the tendency toward socio-political reform, in
+contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose
+motives and aims are primarily of an æsthetic nature and seek in art the
+reconciliation of the dualism between spirit and matter.
+
+Dostoievsky, whom Merejkovsky describes somewhere as the man with the
+never-young face, the face "with its shadows of suffering and its
+wrinkles of sunken-in cheeks ... but that which gives to this face its
+most tortured expression is its seeming immobility, the suddenly
+interrupted impulse, the life hardened into a stone:" this Dostoievsky
+and particularly his _Rodion Raskolnikov_ cycle became a profound
+artistic experience to Rilke. The poor, the outcasts, the homeless ones
+received for him a new significance, the significance of the isolated
+figure placed in the mighty everchanging current of a life in which this
+figure stands strong and solitary. In the poem entitled _Pont Du
+Carrousel_, written in Paris a few years later, Rilke has visioned the
+blind beggar aloof amid the fluctuating crowds of the metropolis.
+
+Of Russia and its influence upon him, Rilke writes: "Russia became for
+me the reality and the deep daily realization that reality is something
+that comes infinitely slowly to those who have patience. Russia is the
+country where men are solitary, each one with a world within himself,
+each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating
+himself, and because of that truly pious. Here the words of men are only
+fragile bridges above their real life."
+
+The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
+art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
+selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
+1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
+as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
+Advent:
+
+    "That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
+     To have no home in the present.
+     And these are wishes: gentle dialogues
+     Of the poor hours with eternity."
+
+With _Das Buch der Bilder_ the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
+lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
+our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
+depths of myth _The Kings in Legends_, or whether we read from _The
+Chronicle of a Monk_ the awe-inspiring description of _The Last Judgment
+Day_, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see _The Maidens at
+Confirmation_, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
+finality of the typical.
+
+It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
+Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer." Hauptmann,
+like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
+his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
+thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
+reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
+social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
+might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
+the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
+an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
+_The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding
+Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical
+gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
+they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this
+concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
+expression:
+
+    "Kings in old legends seem
+     Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+     They blind all with their gleam,
+     Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+     Their robes are edged with bands
+     Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+     With richly jeweled hands
+     They hold their slender, shining, naked swords."
+
+There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to
+concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
+lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like
+"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
+aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
+the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
+in all nature.
+
+In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
+weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
+the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
+forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
+within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
+understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das
+Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
+these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
+prayer of reconciliation and triumph.
+
+_The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in
+the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of
+Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although
+the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book
+of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
+this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book
+of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends
+reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
+by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
+force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning
+with the lines:
+
+    "I live my life in circles that grow wide
+     And endlessly unroll."
+
+Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
+magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
+in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
+him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.
+
+There are poems in _The Book of Pilgrimage_ of the stillness of a
+whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
+their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
+book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
+withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
+the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
+silent world:
+
+    "By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream
+     That like a whisper floats about all men,
+     The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+     After the hour has struck, to close again.
+     And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+     And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+     As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends
+     So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise."
+
+The last part of _The Book of Hours_, _The Book of Poverty and Death_,
+is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
+the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
+demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
+the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
+nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
+and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
+development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
+negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
+positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
+or created in the domain of art.
+
+In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
+because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
+forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
+inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
+profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
+strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
+The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
+significance of Rilke's _Book of Hours_. A distinguished Scandinavian
+writer has pronounced _Das Stunden-Buch_ one of the supreme literary
+achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
+prayer.
+
+In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
+high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
+into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: _The Sketch of Malte
+Laurids Brigge_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _New Poems_ (1907) and _New Poems, Second Part_ (1908) the historical
+figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
+proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
+the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
+human destiny. _Abishag_ presents the contrast between the dawning and
+the fading life; _David Singing Before Saul_ shows the impatience of
+awakening ambition, and _Joshua_ is the man who forces even God to do
+his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
+poems _Eranna to Sappho_, _Lament for Antinous_, _Early Apollo_ and the
+_Archaic Torso of Apollo_.
+
+The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
+superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
+important among which are _The Cathedral_, _God in the Middle Ages_,
+_Saint Sebastian_ personifying martyrdom, and _The Rose Window_, whose
+glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
+Modern Paris is often the background of the _New Poems_, and the crass
+play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
+the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
+flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
+warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
+images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
+technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of _The Book of
+Pictures_ is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
+and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
+convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
+all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these _New Poems_ are not
+quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
+Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
+_The Spanish Dancer_, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
+vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
+momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
+art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
+grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many of the themes in the _New Poems_ bear testimony to the fact that
+Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
+Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
+at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
+entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
+of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
+landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
+landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
+melancholy beauty entered into his own work.
+
+More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
+of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
+his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
+life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The _New Poems_
+bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
+twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
+of a friend and that of an artist.
+
+One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
+features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
+white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
+moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
+the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
+time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
+slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
+on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
+mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
+of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
+listening to some distant music.
+
+From no other book of his, not excepting _The Book of Hours_, can we
+deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
+we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.
+
+Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
+"power of servitude in all nature." For this reason the book on Rodin is
+far more than a purely æsthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
+traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
+itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
+deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
+religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
+begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
+became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
+summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name." And
+he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
+has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
+was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
+significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
+in just this renunciation lay his triumph--for Life entered into his
+work."
+
+Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
+creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
+remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
+consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
+mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
+visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
+and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
+
+H.T.
+
+NEW YORK CITY,
+AUTUMN, 1918.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST POEMS
+
+
+
+    EVENING
+
+
+    The bleak fields are asleep,
+    My heart alone wakes;
+    The evening in the harbour
+    Down his red sails takes.
+
+    Night, guardian of dreams,
+    Now wanders through the land;
+    The moon, a lily white,
+    Blossoms within her hand.
+
+
+
+
+    MARY VIRGIN
+
+
+    How came, how came from out thy night
+    Mary, so much light
+    And so much gloom:
+    Who was thy bridegroom?
+
+    Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot
+    That thou the same art not
+    Who came to me
+    In thy Virginity.
+
+    I am still so blossoming, so young.
+    How shall I go on tiptoe
+    From childhood to Annunciation
+    Through the dim twilight
+    Into thy Garden.
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF PICTURES
+
+
+
+    PRESAGING
+
+
+    I am like a flag unfurled in space,
+    I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,
+    While the things beneath are not yet stirring,
+    While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys
+    And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--
+    Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea
+    And expand and withdraw into myself
+    And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMN
+
+
+    The leaves fall, fall as from far,
+    Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
+    They fall with slow and lingering descent.
+
+    And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
+    From out the stars into the Solitude.
+
+    Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
+    And lo! the other one:--it is the law.
+    But there is One who holds this falling
+    Infinitely softly in His hands.
+
+
+
+
+    SILENT HOUR
+
+
+    Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
+    Weeps without cause in the world
+    Weeps over me.
+
+    Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
+    Laughs without cause in the night
+    Laughs at me.
+
+    Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
+    Wanders in vain in the world
+    Wanders to me.
+
+    Whoever dies somewhere in the world
+    Dies without cause in the world
+    Looks at me.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ANGELS
+
+
+    They all have tired mouths
+    And luminous, illimitable souls;
+    And a longing (as if for sin)
+    Trembles at times through their dreams.
+
+    They all resemble one another,
+    In God's garden they are silent
+    Like many, many intervals
+    In His mighty melody.
+
+    But when they spread their wings
+    They awaken the winds
+    That stir as though God
+    With His far-reaching master hands
+    Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
+
+
+
+
+    SOLITUDE
+
+
+    Solitude is like a rain
+    That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
+    It floats remote across the far-off plain
+    Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
+    Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
+    Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
+    When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
+    When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
+    Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
+    When men with quiet hatred burning deep
+    Together in a common bed must sleep--
+    Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
+    Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan ...
+
+
+
+
+    KINGS IN LEGENDS
+
+
+    Kings in old legends seem
+    Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+    They blind all with their gleam,
+    Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+    Their robes are edged with bands
+    Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+    With richly jeweled hands
+    They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
+
+
+
+
+    THE KNIGHT
+
+
+    The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
+    Into the roar of the world.
+    And here is Life: the vines in the vale
+    And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
+    And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
+    God's flags afloat on every wall
+    In a thousand streets unfurled.
+
+    Beneath the armour of the Knight
+    Behind the chain's black links
+    Death crouches and thinks and thinks:
+    "When will the sword's blade sharp and bright
+    Forth from the scabbard spring
+    And cut the network of the cloak
+    Enmeshing me ring on ring--
+    When will the foe's delivering stroke
+    Set me free
+    To dance
+    And sing?"
+
+
+
+
+    THE BOY
+
+
+    I wish I might become like one of these
+    Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
+    With torches flaming out like loosened hair
+    On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.
+    I wish to stand as on a boat and dare
+    The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
+    In darkness but with helmet made of gold
+    That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,
+    Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
+    With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,
+    Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.
+    One stands by me and blows a blast apace
+    On his great flashing trumpet and the sound
+    Shrieks through the vast black solitude around
+    Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.
+    The houses fall behind us on their knees,
+    Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
+    The great squares yieled to us and them we seize--
+    And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.
+
+
+
+
+    INITIATION
+
+
+    Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,
+    Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,
+    And far in the dim distance leave thy home,
+    Whosoever thou art.
+    Lift thine eyes which lingering see
+    The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
+    Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree
+    That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,
+    And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise
+    Like words that in the silence clearer grow;
+    As they unfold before thy will to know
+    Gently withdraw thine eyes--
+
+
+
+
+    THE NEIGHBOUR
+
+
+    Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?
+    In many foreign cities, far away,
+    Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.
+    Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?
+
+    Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed
+    Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,
+
+    Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?
+    Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?
+    Why am I the neighbour always
+    Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?
+    Life is more heavy--thy song says--
+    Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.
+
+
+
+
+    SONG OF THE STATUE
+
+
+    Who so loveth me that he
+    Will give his precious life for me?
+    I shall be set free from the stone
+    If some one drowns for me in the sea,
+    I shall have life, life of my own,--
+    For life I ache.
+
+    I long for the singing blood,
+    The stone is so still and cold.
+    I dream of life, life is good.
+    Will no one love me and be bold
+    And me awake?
+
+    -------------------------------
+
+    I weep and weep alone,
+    Weep always for my stone.
+    What joy is my blood to me
+    If it ripens like red wine?
+    It cannot call back from the sea
+    The life that was given for mine,
+    Given for Love's sake.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. I
+
+
+    Others must by a long dark way
+    Stray to the mystic bards,
+    Or ask some one who has heard them sing
+    Or touch the magic chords.
+    Only the maidens question not
+    The bridges that lead to Dream;
+    Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls
+    On a silver vase agleam.
+
+    The maidens' doors of Life lead out
+    Where the song of the poet soars,
+    And out beyond to the great world--
+    To the world beyond the doors.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. II
+
+
+    Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
+    How solitary and remote you are,
+    As night is lighted by one high bright star
+    They draw light from the distance where you dwell.
+
+    For poet you must always maiden be
+    Even though his eyes the woman in you wake
+    Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,
+    Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.
+
+    Within his garden let him wait alone
+    Where benches stand expectant in the shade
+    Within the chamber where the lyre was played
+    Where he received you as the eternal One.
+
+    Go! It grows dark--your voice and form no more
+    His senses seek; he now no longer sees
+    A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
+    Along the pathway where it gleamed before.
+
+    He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
+    And he loves much the silent chamber where
+    Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
+    He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.
+
+    The softly stealing echo comes again
+    From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;
+    And many see you there--so his thought runs--
+    And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE BRIDE
+
+
+    Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!
+    Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;
+    The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps
+    Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
+
+    O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,
+    Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
+    Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
+    I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out ...
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMNAL DAY
+
+
+    Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
+    Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
+    And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.
+
+    Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
+    Give to them two more burning days and press
+    The last sweetness into the heavy wine.
+
+    He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
+    Who is alone will now remain alone;
+    He will awake, will read, will letters write
+    Through the long day and in the lonely night;
+    And restless, solitary, he will rove
+    Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.
+
+
+
+
+    MOONLIGHT NIGHT
+
+
+    South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above
+    Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.
+    From the old tower the hours fall heavily
+    Into the dark as though into the sea--
+    A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,
+    Then for a while void silence fills the air;
+    And then a violin (from God knows where)
+    Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love ... Oh Love ...
+
+
+
+
+    IN APRIL
+
+
+    Again the woods are odorous, the lark
+    Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
+    That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
+    Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
+
+    After long rainy afternoons an hour
+    Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
+    Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
+    And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
+
+    Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
+    By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
+    And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
+    In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
+
+
+
+
+    MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
+
+
+    The darkness hung like richness in the room
+    When like a dream the mother entered there
+    And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air
+    Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.
+
+    The room betrayed the mother--so she felt--
+    She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here?"
+    And with a gesture that he held most dear
+    Down for a moment by his side she knelt.
+
+    Toward the piano they both shyly glanced
+    For she would sing to him on many a night,
+    And the child seated in the fading light
+    Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
+
+    His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow
+    Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent
+    And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
+    Moving as though against a drift of snow.
+
+
+
+
+   DEATH
+
+
+   Before us great Death stands
+   Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
+   When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine
+   To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
+   And ecstasy through all our being leaps--
+   Death bows his head and weeps.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ASHANTEE
+                    (Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
+
+
+    No vision of exotic southern countries,
+    No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
+    Whirling from out their falling draperies
+    To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;
+
+    No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,
+    No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids
+    Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,
+    No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.
+
+    Only mouths widening with a still broad smile
+    Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
+    At white men, at their vanity and guile,
+    An understanding that fills one with fear.
+
+    The beasts in cages much more loyal are,
+    Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,
+    Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
+    Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.
+
+    They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
+    Consumed by longings over which they brood,
+    Oblivious of time, without desire,
+    Alone and lost in their great solitude.
+
+
+
+
+    REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+    Expectant and waiting you muse
+    On the great rare thing which alone
+    To enhance your life you would choose:
+    The awakening of the stone,
+    The deeps where yourself you would lose.
+
+    In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
+    Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
+    And you think of countries once crossed,
+    Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
+    Of the women that you have lost.
+
+    And it comes to you then at last--
+    And you rise for you are aware
+    Of a year in the far off past
+    With its wonder and fear and prayer.
+
+
+
+
+    MUSIC
+
+
+    What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole
+    Like wandering steps, like a whisper--then mute;
+    What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul
+    Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
+
+    And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,
+    It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;
+    Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
+    Is the longing that through your music sighs.
+
+    Let your flute be still and your soul float through
+    Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,
+    For here your song lived and it wisely grew
+    Before it was forced into melody.
+
+    Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,
+    Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!
+    Now it no longer steals over my walls--
+    But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDEN MELANCHOLY
+
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    As from some myth of old.
+
+    He came! You felt yourself entwined
+    As a great storm would round you wind.
+    He went! A blessing undefined
+    Seemed left, as when church-bells declined
+    And left you wrapt in prayer.
+    You fain would cry aloud--but bind
+    Your scarf about you and tear-blind
+    Weep softly in its fold.
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    Full armored forth to fare.
+
+    His smile was luminously kind
+    Like glint of ivory enshrined,
+    Like a home longing undivined,
+    Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,
+    Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,
+    Like moonlight silver when combined
+    With a loved book's rare gold.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION
+
+                    (Paris in May, 1903)
+
+
+    The white veiled maids to confirmation go
+    Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;
+    Their childhood they are leaving now behind:
+    The future will be different, they know.
+
+    Oh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!
+    The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
+    The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,
+    And sadly passes by the afternoon ...
+
+    Like resurrection were the garments white
+    The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide
+    Into the church, as cool as silk inside,
+    With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:
+    The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
+    To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.
+
+    Then through the silence the great song rose high
+    Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
+    Then luminously, gently down it poured--
+    Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.
+
+    The wind through the white garments softly stirred
+    And they grew vari-coloured in each fold
+    And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold
+    And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,
+    And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold
+    Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.
+
+    Outside the day was one of green and blue,
+    With touches of a luminous glowing red,
+    Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
+    Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
+    Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
+    And singing sounded through the far off trees.
+
+    It was as though garlands crowned everything
+    And all things were touched softly by the sun;
+    And many windows opened one by one
+    And the light trembled on them glistening.
+
+
+
+
+    THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
+
+
+    Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
+    And lose myself--for to you I belong.
+    The hope that hitherto I have denied
+    Imperious comes to me as from your side
+    Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
+
+    Those times: the times when I was quite alone
+    By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
+    My silence was the quiet of a stone
+    Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.
+
+    But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
+    Something within me has been freed--something
+    That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
+    Which rises now within me and commands
+    And gives my poor warm life into your hands
+    Who know not what I was that Yesterday.
+
+
+
+
+    PONT DU CARROUSEL
+
+
+    Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
+    Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers
+    As though of nameless realms the boundary stone
+    About which circle distant starry hours.
+
+    He seems the center around which stars glow
+    While all earth's ostentations surge below.
+
+    Immovably and silently he stands
+    Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;
+    Past fathomless dark depths that he commands
+    A shallow generation drifting goes....
+
+
+
+
+    MADNESS
+
+
+    She thinks: I am--Have you not seen?
+    Who are you then, Marie?
+    I am a Queen, I am a Queen!
+    To your knee, to your knee!
+
+    And then she weeps: I was--a child--
+    Who were you then, Marie?
+    Know you that I was no man's child,
+    Poor and in rags--said she.
+
+    And then a Princess I became
+    To whom men bend their knees;
+    To princes things are not the same
+    As those a beggar sees.
+
+    And those things which have made you great
+    Came to you, tell me, when?
+    One night, one night, one night quite late,
+    Things became different then.
+
+    I walked the lane which presently
+    With strung chords seemed to bend;
+    Then Marie became Melody
+    And danced from end to end.
+
+    The people watched with startled mien
+    And passed with frightened glance
+    For all know that only a Queen
+    May dance in the lanes: dance!...
+
+
+
+
+    LAMENT
+
+
+    Oh! All things are long passed away and far.
+    A light is shining but the distant star
+    From which it still comes to me has been dead
+    A thousand years ... In the dim phantom boat
+    That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
+    A clock just struck within some house remote.
+    Which house?--I long to still my beating heart.
+    Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray ...
+    Of all the stars there must be far away
+    A single star which still exists apart.
+    And I believe that I should know the one
+    Which has alone endured and which alone
+    Like a white City that all space commands
+    At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.
+
+
+
+
+     SYMBOLS
+
+
+     From infinite longings finite deeds rise
+     As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
+     But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
+     And trembling from their lack of power descend--
+     So through the falling torrent of our fears
+     Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
+
+
+
+
+NEW POEMS
+
+
+
+
+    EARLY APOLLO
+
+
+    As when at times there breaks through branches bare
+    A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,
+    About this poet-head a splendour rare
+    Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.
+
+    There is as yet no shadow in his glance,
+    Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;
+    But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,
+    A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
+
+    And single petals one by one will fall
+    O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
+    --The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile
+    As though a song were rising there the while.
+
+
+
+
+    THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
+
+
+    We still remember! The same as of yore
+    All that has happened once again must be.
+    As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--
+    It was like that--your light, small breasts you bore,
+    And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.
+
+    That god--
+              who was the wanderer, the slim
+    Despoiler of fair women; he--the wise,--
+    But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
+    Who cast a shadow over your young limb
+    While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.
+
+
+
+
+    THE POET
+
+
+    You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,
+    Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;
+    Without you void would be my day and night,
+    Without you I'll not capture my great song.
+
+    I have no earthly spot where I can live,
+    I have no love, I have no household fane,
+    And all the things to which myself I give
+    Impoverish me with richness they attain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE PANTHER
+
+
+    His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
+    Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
+    It seems to him there are a thousand bars
+    And out beyond those bars the empty air.
+
+    The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
+    Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
+    Is like a dance of strength circling around,
+    While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
+
+    But there are times the pupils of his eyes
+    Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
+    Tense with the flood of visions that arise
+    Only to sink and die within his heart.
+
+
+
+
+    GROWING BLIND
+
+
+    Among all the others there sat a guest
+    Who sipped her tea as if one apart,
+    And she held her cup not quite like the rest;
+    Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.
+
+    When the group of people arose at last
+    And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
+    As lingeringly through the rooms they passed
+    I saw that she followed alone.
+
+    Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
+    Before a throng on a festal night
+    She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes
+    Were like pools which reflected light.
+
+    She followed on slowly after the last
+    As though some object must be passed by,
+    And yet as if were it once but passed
+    She would no longer walk but fly.
+
+
+
+
+    THE SPANISH DANCER
+
+
+    As a lit match first flickers in the hands
+    Before it flames, and darts out from all sides
+    Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
+    Of spectators--she, quivering, glowing stands
+    Poised tensely for the dance--then forward glides
+
+    And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.
+    Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,
+    And with a daring art at her command
+    Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
+    From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
+    Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.
+
+    And then, as though the fire fainter grows,
+    She gathers up the flame--again it glows,
+    As with proud gesture and imperious air
+    She flings it to the earth; and it lies there
+    Furiously flickering and crackling still--
+    Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
+    Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
+    And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.
+
+
+
+
+    OFFERING
+
+
+    My body glows in every vein and blooms
+    To fullest flower since I first knew thee,
+    My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;
+    Who art thou then--thou who awaitest me?
+
+    When from the past I draw myself the while
+    I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;
+    I only know the radiance of thy smile,
+    Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.
+
+    Through childhood's years I wandered unaware
+    Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests
+    To offer thee, as on an altar fair
+    That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair
+    And wreathéd by the blossoms of thy breasts.
+
+
+
+
+    LOVE SONG
+
+
+    When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
+    How shall I tune it then to other things?
+    O! That some spot in darkness could be found
+    That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.
+    But everything that touches you and me
+    Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
+    Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
+    And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
+    O! Sweet song--
+
+
+
+
+    ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
+
+
+    We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
+    Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
+    But from his torso gleaming light is shed
+    As from a candelabrum; inward bent
+    His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
+    The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
+    Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
+    Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
+    Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
+    Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
+    Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
+    Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
+    There is no spot that does not bind you fast
+    And transport you back, back to a far past.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF HOURS
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of A Monk's Life_
+
+
+
+
+    I live my life in circles that grow wide
+    And endlessly unroll,
+    I may not reach the last, but on I glide
+    Strong pinioned toward my goal.
+
+    About the old tower, dark against the sky,
+    The beat of my wings hums,
+    I circle about God, sweep far and high
+    On through milleniums.
+
+    Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
+    Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
+
+
+
+
+    Many have painted her. But there was one
+    Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
+    Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
+    When he was suffering she came to him,
+    And all the heavy pain within his heart
+    Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
+    His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
+    Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
+    Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
+    A trembling smile softly begins to dawn ...
+    Though angels with seven candles light the place
+    You cannot read the secret of her face.
+
+
+
+
+    In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
+    In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
+    They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
+    And I dream of young Titians and of others
+    In which the God with shining radiance glows.
+
+    But though my vigil constantly I keep
+    My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
+    A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
+    I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
+    More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
+    My branches only are swayed by the wind.
+
+
+
+
+    Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
+    Against thee all my surging senses sing?
+    About thy face in circles drawing near
+    My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
+
+    Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
+    In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
+    But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
+    Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
+
+    When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
+    But when thou art awake I am thy Will
+    Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
+    Expanding like far space star-lit and still
+    Into the distant mystic realm of Time.
+
+
+
+
+    I love my life's dark hours
+    In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
+    While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
+    Or letters old, I magically steep
+    Myself in days gone by: again I give
+    Myself unto the past:--again I live.
+
+    Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
+    Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...
+
+    Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
+    Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
+    'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
+    And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
+    Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
+    Are lost once more in sadness and in song.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Pilgrimage_
+
+
+
+
+    By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
+    That like a whisper floats about all men,
+    The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+    After the hour has struck, to close again.
+
+    And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+    And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+    As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
+    So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.
+
+
+
+
+    All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
+    And those who find would bind Thee
+    To gesture and to form.
+
+    But I would comprehend Thee
+    As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
+    Thou growest with my maturity,
+    Thou Art in calm and storm.
+
+    I ask of Thee no vanity
+    To evidence and prove Thee.
+    Thou Wert in eons old.
+
+    Perform no miracles for me,
+    But justify Thy laws to me
+    Which, as the years pass by me.
+    All soundlessly unfold.
+
+
+
+
+    In a house was one who arose from the feast
+    And went forth to wander in distant lands,
+    Because there was somewhere far off in the East
+    A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
+    And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
+    Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.
+
+    In another house was the one who had died,
+    Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
+    And ever within the walls did abide--
+    For out of the house he could no more pass.
+    And his children set forth to seek for the spot
+    Where stands the great Church which he forgot.
+
+
+
+
+    Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
+    Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
+    And without feet I still can follow you,
+    And without voice I still can to you call.
+    Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
+    Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
+    Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
+    As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
+    And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
+    Through all the singing currents of my blood.
+
+
+
+
+    In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
+    To seek you over the wide world I roam,
+    For all abundance is but meager measure
+    Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.
+
+    Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
+    Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
+    You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
+    Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?
+
+    My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
+    Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
+    To find you before day to night has drifted;
+    I reach out into space to seek you there ...
+
+    Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
+    Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
+    You come, and over earth a magic vesture
+    Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Poverty and Death_
+
+
+
+
+    Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
+    That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
+    But that had once from Life received all this
+    Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
+    From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
+    A thing apart, a parable in stone.
+
+
+
+
+    Alone Thou wanderest through space,
+    Profound One with the hidden face;
+    Thou art Poverty's great rose,
+    The eternal metamorphose
+    Of gold into the light of sun.
+
+    Thou art the mystic homeless One;
+    Into the world Thou never came,
+    Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
+    Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
+    Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!
+
+
+
+
+    A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
+    Make me a listener at Thy stone,
+    Give to me vision and then wake me
+    Upon Thy oceans all alone.
+    Thy rivers' courses let me follow
+    Where they leap the crags in their flight
+    And where at dusk in caverns hollow
+    They croon to music of the night.
+    Send me far into Thy barren land
+    Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
+    Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
+    August symbols of unlived lives.
+    There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
+    And behind them a blind man goes:
+    With him I will walk till day is done
+    Up the pathway that no one knows ...
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poems
+
+Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+Translator: Jessie Lemont
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2012 [EBook #38594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+by
+
+RANIER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+Translated by Jessie Lamont
+
+With an Introduction by H.T.
+
+
+New York
+
+Tobias A. Wright
+
+1918
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+
+AUGUSTE RODIN
+
+THROUGH WHOM I CAME TO KNOW
+
+RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+POEMS OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Acknowledgment
+
+To the Editors of Poetry--A magazine of Verse, and Poet Lore, the
+translator is indebted for permission to reprint certain poems in this
+book--also to the compilers of the following anthologies--Amphora II
+edited by Thomas Bird Mosher--The Catholic Anthology of World Poetry
+selected by Carl van Doren.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_Introduction:_
+  The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+_First Poems:_
+  Evening
+  Mary Virgin
+
+_The Book of Pictures:_
+  Presaging
+  Autumn
+  Silent Hour
+  The Angels
+  Solitude
+  Kings in Legends
+  The Knight
+  The Boy
+  Initiation
+  The Neighbour
+  Song of the Statue
+  Maidens I
+  Maidens II
+  The Bride
+  Autumnal Day
+  Moonlight Night
+  In April
+  Memories of a Childhood
+  Death
+  The Ashantee
+  Remembrance
+  Music
+  Maiden Melancholy
+  Maidens at Confirmation
+  The Woman who Loves
+  Pont du Carrousel
+  Madness
+  Lament
+  Symbols
+
+_New Poems:_
+  Early Apollo
+  The Tomb of a Young Girl
+  The Poet
+  The Panther
+  Growing Blind
+  The Spanish Dancer
+  Offering
+  Love Song
+  Archaic Torso of Apollo
+
+_The Book of Hours:_
+
+  _The Book of a Monk's Life_
+    I Live my Life in Circles
+    Many have Painted Her
+    In Cassocks Clad
+    Thou Anxious One
+    I Love My Life's Dark Hours
+
+  _The Book of Pilgrimage_
+    By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream
+    All Those Who Seek Thee
+    In a House Was One
+    Extinguish My Eyes
+    In the Deep Nights
+
+  _The Book of Poverty and Death_
+    Her Mouth
+    Alone Thou Wanderest
+    A Watcher of Thy Spaces
+
+
+
+
+THE POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+    [Greek: eisi gar oun, oi en tas phuchais kuousin]
+
+                                     Plato
+
+The supreme problem of every age is that of finding its consummate
+artistic expression. Before this problem every other remains of
+secondary importance. History defines and directs its physical course,
+science cooperates in the achievement of its material aims, but Art
+alone gives to the age its spiritual physiognomy, its ultimate and
+lasting expression.
+
+The process of Art is on the one hand sensuous, the conception having
+for its basis the fineness of organization of the senses; and on the
+other hand it is severely scientific, the value of the creation being
+dependent upon the craftsmanship, the mastery over the tool, the
+technique.
+
+Art, like Nature, its great and only reservoir for all time past and all
+time to come, ever strives for elimination and selection. It is severe
+and aristocratic in the application of its laws and impervious to appeal
+to serve other than its own aims. Its purpose is the symbolization of
+Life. In its sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment,
+the serene, final, and imperturbable solitude which is the ultimate
+criterion of all great things created.
+
+To speak of Poetry is to speak of the most subtle, the most delicate,
+and the most accurate instrument by which to measure Life.
+
+Poetry is reality's essence visioned and made manifest by one endowed
+with a perception acutely sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and
+gifted with a power to shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the
+reaction to Life's phenomena. The poet moulds that which appears
+evanescent and ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values.
+In this act of creation he serves eternity.
+
+Poetry, in especial lyrical poetry, must be acknowledged the supreme
+art, culminating as it does in a union of the other arts, the musical,
+the plastic, and the pictorial.
+
+The most eminent contemporary poets of Europe have, each in accordance
+with his individual temperament, reflected in their work the spiritual
+essence of our age, its fears and failures, its hopes and high
+achievements: Maeterlinck, with his mood of resignation and his
+retirement into a dusky twilight where his shadowy figures move
+noiselessly like phantoms in fate-laden dimness; Dehmel, the worshipper
+of will, with his passion for materiality and the beauty of all things
+physical and tangible; Verhaeren, the visionary of a new vitality, who
+sees in the toilers of fields and factories the heroic gesture of our
+time and who might have written its great epic of industry but for the
+overwhelming lyrical mood of his soul.
+
+Until a few years ago, known only to a relatively small community on the
+continent but commanding an ever increasing attention which has borne
+his name far beyond the boundary of his country, the personality of
+Rainer Maria Rilke stands to-day beside the most illustrious poets of
+modern Europe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The background against which the figure of Rainer Maria Rilke is
+silhouetted is so varied, the influences which have entered into his
+life are so manifold, that a study of his work, however slight, must
+needs take into consideration the elements through which this poet has
+matured into a great master.
+
+Prague, the city in which Rilke was born in 1875, with its sinister
+palaces and crumbling towers that rose in the early Middle Ages and have
+reached out into our time like the threatening fingers of mighty hands
+which have wielded swords for generations and which are stained with the
+blood of many wounds of many races; the city where amid grey old ruins
+blonde maidens are at play or are lost in reverie in the green cool
+parks and shady gardens with which the Bohemian capital abounds, this
+Prague of mingled grotesqueness and beauty gave to the young boy his
+first impressions.
+
+There is a period in the life of every artist when his whole being seems
+lost in a contemplation of the surrounding world, when the application
+to work is difficult, like the violent forcing of something that is
+awaiting its time. This is the time of his dream, as sacred as the days
+of early spring before wind and rain and light have touched the fruits
+of the fields, when there is a tense bleak silence over the whole of
+nature, in which is wrapped the strength of storms and the glow of the
+summer's sun. This is the time of his deepest dream, and upon this dream
+and its guarding depends the final realization of his life's work.
+
+The young graduate of the Gymnasium was to enter upon the career of an
+army officer in accordance with the traditions of the family, an old
+noble house which traces its lineage far back to Carinthian ancestry.
+His inclinations, however, pointed so decisively in the direction of the
+finer arts of life that he left the Military Academy after a very short
+attendance to devote himself to the study of philosophy and the history
+of art.
+
+As one turns the pages of Rilke's first small book of poems, published
+originally under the title _Larenopfer_, in the year 1895, and which
+appeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name _Erste
+Gedichte_, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in the
+presentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovingly
+over the dream of his boyhood. As the title indicates, these poems are a
+tribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town.
+Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme of
+almost every one of these poems. The meadows, the maidens, the dark
+river in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising like
+grey mists are seen with a wonderment, the great well-spring of all
+poetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through all these
+poems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude for
+the ability to thus vision the world, to be sunk in the music of all
+things. "Without is everything that I feel within myself, and without
+and within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable."
+
+These pictures of town and landscape are never separated from their
+personal relation to the poet. He feels too keenly his dependence upon
+them, as a child views flowers and stars as personal possessions. Not
+until later was he to reach the height of an impersonal objectivity in
+his art. What distinguishes these early poems from similar adolescent
+productions is the restraint in the presentation, the economy and
+intensity of expression and that quality of listening to the inner voice
+of things which renders the poet the seer of mankind.
+
+The second book of poems appeared two years later and like the first
+volume _Traumgekr�nt_ is full of the music that is reminiscent of the
+mild melancholy of the Bohemian folk-songs, in whose gentle rhythms the
+barbaric strength of the race seems to be lulled to rest as the waves of
+a far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. The themes of
+_Traumgekr�nt_ are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environment
+of Prague and some of the most beautiful poems are luminous pictures of
+villages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June, out of which
+rises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing.
+In these first two volumes the poet is satisfied with painting in words,
+full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world. From this period dates
+the small poem _Evening_, which seems to have been sketched by a
+Japanese painter, so clear and colourful is its texture, so precious and
+precise are its outlines.
+
+With _Advent_ and _Mir Zur Feier_, both published within the following
+three years, a phase of questioning commences, a dim desire begins to
+stir to reach out into the larger world "deep into life, out beyond
+time." Whereas the early poems were characterized by a tendency to turn
+away from the turmoil of life--in fact, the concrete world of reality
+does not seem to exist--there is noticeable in these two later volumes
+an advance toward life in the sense that the poet is beginning to
+approach and to vision some of its greatest symbols.
+
+Throughout the entire work of Rilke, in his poetry as well as in his
+interpretations of painting and sculpture, there are two elements that
+constitute the cornerstones in the structure of his art. If, as has been
+said with a degree of verity, Nietzsche was primarily a musician whose
+philosophy had for its basis and took its ultimate aspects from the
+musical quality of his artistic endowment, it may be maintained with an
+equal amount of truth that Rilke is primarily a painter and sculptor
+whose poetry rests upon the fundaments of the pictorial and plastic
+arts.
+
+Up to the time of the publication of these volumes, Rilke's poems
+possessed a quietude, a stillness suggested in the straight unbroken yet
+delicate lines of the picture which he portrays and in the soft, almost
+unpulsating rhythm of his words. The approach of evening or nightfall,
+the coming of dawn, the change of the seasons, the slow changes of light
+into darkness and of darkness into light, in short, the most silent yet
+greatest metamorphoses in the external aspects of nature form the
+contents of many of these first poems. The inanimate object and the
+living creature in nature are not seen in the sharp contours of their
+isolation; they are viewed and interpreted in the atmosphere that
+surrounds them, in which they are enwrapped and so densely veiled that
+the outlines are only dimly visible, be that atmosphere the mystic grey
+of northern twilight or the dark velvety blue of southern summer nights.
+In _Advent_, the experience of the atmosphere becomes an experience in
+his innermost soul and, therefore, all things become of value to him
+only in so far as they partake of the atmosphere, as they are seen in a
+peculiar air and distance. This first phase in Rilke's work may be
+defined as the phase of reposeful nature.
+
+To this sphere of relaxation and restfulness in which the objects are
+static and are changed only as the surrounding atmosphere affects them,
+the second phase in the poet's development adds another element, which
+later was to grow into dimensions so powerful, so violently breaking
+beyond the limitations of simple expression in words that it could only
+find its satisfaction in a dithyrambic hymn to the work of the great
+plastic artist of our time, to the creations of Auguste Rodin. This
+second element is that which the French sculptor in a different medium
+has carried to perfection. It is the element of gesture, of dramatic
+movement.
+
+This might seem the appropriate place in which to speak of Rilke's
+monograph on the art of Rodin. To do so would, however, be an undue
+anticipation, for it will be necessary to trace Rilke's development
+through several transitions before the value of his contact with the
+work of Rodin can be fully measured.
+
+The gesture, the movement begins in _Advent_ and _Celebration_ to
+disturb the stillness prevailing in the first two volumes of poems. Even
+here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of
+wind over a quiet sea; and gentle beings make this first gesture,
+children and young women at play, singing, dancing or at prayer.
+
+Particularly in the cycle _Songs of the Maidens_ in the book
+_Celebration_, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic
+background of the landscape against which the gesture of longing or
+expectation is seen and felt. It is the impatience to burst into
+blossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these _Songs of the
+Maidens_ with the tenseness of suspense. _The Prayers of the Maidens to
+Mary_ have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with the
+ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly
+Virgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love and
+motherhood. This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued and
+is only heard like the cadence of a far off dream:
+
+    "How shall I go on tiptoe
+     From childhood to Annunciation
+     Through the dim twilight
+     Into Thy Garden?"
+
+Mention should be made of some prose writings which Rilke published in
+the year 1898 and shortly afterward. They are _Two Stories of Prague_,
+_The Touch of Life_ and _The Last_; three volumes of short stories; a
+two-act drama, _The Daily Life_, points to a strong Maeterlinck
+influence, and finally _Stories of God_. With both beauty of detail and
+problematic interest, the short stories show an incoherence of treatment
+and a lack of dramatic co-ordination easily conceivable in a poet who is
+essentially lyrical and who at that time had not mastered the means of
+technique to give to his characters the clear chiselling of the epic
+form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A sojourn in Russia and especially the acquaintance with the novels of
+Dostoievsky became potent factors in Rilke's development and served to
+deepen creations which without this influence might have terminated in a
+grandiose �sthesia.
+
+Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as
+springing from an ethical impulse and as having for their motive power
+and _raison d'�tre_ the tendency toward socio-political reform, in
+contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose
+motives and aims are primarily of an �sthetic nature and seek in art the
+reconciliation of the dualism between spirit and matter.
+
+Dostoievsky, whom Merejkovsky describes somewhere as the man with the
+never-young face, the face "with its shadows of suffering and its
+wrinkles of sunken-in cheeks ... but that which gives to this face its
+most tortured expression is its seeming immobility, the suddenly
+interrupted impulse, the life hardened into a stone:" this Dostoievsky
+and particularly his _Rodion Raskolnikov_ cycle became a profound
+artistic experience to Rilke. The poor, the outcasts, the homeless ones
+received for him a new significance, the significance of the isolated
+figure placed in the mighty everchanging current of a life in which this
+figure stands strong and solitary. In the poem entitled _Pont Du
+Carrousel_, written in Paris a few years later, Rilke has visioned the
+blind beggar aloof amid the fluctuating crowds of the metropolis.
+
+Of Russia and its influence upon him, Rilke writes: "Russia became for
+me the reality and the deep daily realization that reality is something
+that comes infinitely slowly to those who have patience. Russia is the
+country where men are solitary, each one with a world within himself,
+each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating
+himself, and because of that truly pious. Here the words of men are only
+fragile bridges above their real life."
+
+The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
+art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
+selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
+1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
+as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
+Advent:
+
+    "That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
+     To have no home in the present.
+     And these are wishes: gentle dialogues
+     Of the poor hours with eternity."
+
+With _Das Buch der Bilder_ the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
+lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
+our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
+depths of myth _The Kings in Legends_, or whether we read from _The
+Chronicle of a Monk_ the awe-inspiring description of _The Last Judgment
+Day_, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see _The Maidens at
+Confirmation_, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
+finality of the typical.
+
+It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
+Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer." Hauptmann,
+like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
+his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
+thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
+reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
+social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
+might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
+the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
+an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
+_The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding
+Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical
+gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
+they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this
+concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
+expression:
+
+    "Kings in old legends seem
+     Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+     They blind all with their gleam,
+     Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+     Their robes are edged with bands
+     Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+     With richly jeweled hands
+     They hold their slender, shining, naked swords."
+
+There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to
+concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
+lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like
+"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
+aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
+the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
+in all nature.
+
+In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
+weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
+the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
+forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
+within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
+understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das
+Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
+these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
+prayer of reconciliation and triumph.
+
+_The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in
+the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of
+Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although
+the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book
+of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
+this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book
+of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends
+reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
+by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
+force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning
+with the lines:
+
+    "I live my life in circles that grow wide
+     And endlessly unroll."
+
+Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
+magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
+in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
+him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.
+
+There are poems in _The Book of Pilgrimage_ of the stillness of a
+whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
+their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
+book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
+withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
+the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
+silent world:
+
+    "By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream
+     That like a whisper floats about all men,
+     The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+     After the hour has struck, to close again.
+     And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+     And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+     As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends
+     So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise."
+
+The last part of _The Book of Hours_, _The Book of Poverty and Death_,
+is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
+the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
+demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
+the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
+nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
+and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
+development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
+negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
+positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
+or created in the domain of art.
+
+In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
+because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
+forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
+inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
+profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
+strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
+The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
+significance of Rilke's _Book of Hours_. A distinguished Scandinavian
+writer has pronounced _Das Stunden-Buch_ one of the supreme literary
+achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
+prayer.
+
+In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
+high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
+into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: _The Sketch of Malte
+Laurids Brigge_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _New Poems_ (1907) and _New Poems, Second Part_ (1908) the historical
+figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
+proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
+the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
+human destiny. _Abishag_ presents the contrast between the dawning and
+the fading life; _David Singing Before Saul_ shows the impatience of
+awakening ambition, and _Joshua_ is the man who forces even God to do
+his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
+poems _Eranna to Sappho_, _Lament for Antinous_, _Early Apollo_ and the
+_Archaic Torso of Apollo_.
+
+The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
+superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
+important among which are _The Cathedral_, _God in the Middle Ages_,
+_Saint Sebastian_ personifying martyrdom, and _The Rose Window_, whose
+glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
+Modern Paris is often the background of the _New Poems_, and the crass
+play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
+the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
+flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
+warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
+images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
+technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of _The Book of
+Pictures_ is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
+and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
+convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
+all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these _New Poems_ are not
+quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
+Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
+_The Spanish Dancer_, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
+vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
+momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
+art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
+grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many of the themes in the _New Poems_ bear testimony to the fact that
+Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
+Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
+at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
+entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
+of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
+landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
+landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
+melancholy beauty entered into his own work.
+
+More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
+of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
+his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
+life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The _New Poems_
+bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
+twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
+of a friend and that of an artist.
+
+One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
+features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
+white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
+moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
+the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
+time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
+slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
+on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
+mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
+of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
+listening to some distant music.
+
+From no other book of his, not excepting _The Book of Hours_, can we
+deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
+we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.
+
+Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
+"power of servitude in all nature." For this reason the book on Rodin is
+far more than a purely �sthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
+traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
+itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
+deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
+religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
+begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
+became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
+summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name." And
+he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
+has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
+was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
+significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
+in just this renunciation lay his triumph--for Life entered into his
+work."
+
+Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
+creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
+remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
+consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
+mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
+visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
+and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
+
+H.T.
+
+NEW YORK CITY,
+AUTUMN, 1918.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST POEMS
+
+
+
+    EVENING
+
+
+    The bleak fields are asleep,
+    My heart alone wakes;
+    The evening in the harbour
+    Down his red sails takes.
+
+    Night, guardian of dreams,
+    Now wanders through the land;
+    The moon, a lily white,
+    Blossoms within her hand.
+
+
+
+
+    MARY VIRGIN
+
+
+    How came, how came from out thy night
+    Mary, so much light
+    And so much gloom:
+    Who was thy bridegroom?
+
+    Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot
+    That thou the same art not
+    Who came to me
+    In thy Virginity.
+
+    I am still so blossoming, so young.
+    How shall I go on tiptoe
+    From childhood to Annunciation
+    Through the dim twilight
+    Into thy Garden.
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF PICTURES
+
+
+
+    PRESAGING
+
+
+    I am like a flag unfurled in space,
+    I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,
+    While the things beneath are not yet stirring,
+    While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys
+    And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--
+    Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea
+    And expand and withdraw into myself
+    And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMN
+
+
+    The leaves fall, fall as from far,
+    Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
+    They fall with slow and lingering descent.
+
+    And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
+    From out the stars into the Solitude.
+
+    Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
+    And lo! the other one:--it is the law.
+    But there is One who holds this falling
+    Infinitely softly in His hands.
+
+
+
+
+    SILENT HOUR
+
+
+    Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
+    Weeps without cause in the world
+    Weeps over me.
+
+    Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
+    Laughs without cause in the night
+    Laughs at me.
+
+    Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
+    Wanders in vain in the world
+    Wanders to me.
+
+    Whoever dies somewhere in the world
+    Dies without cause in the world
+    Looks at me.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ANGELS
+
+
+    They all have tired mouths
+    And luminous, illimitable souls;
+    And a longing (as if for sin)
+    Trembles at times through their dreams.
+
+    They all resemble one another,
+    In God's garden they are silent
+    Like many, many intervals
+    In His mighty melody.
+
+    But when they spread their wings
+    They awaken the winds
+    That stir as though God
+    With His far-reaching master hands
+    Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
+
+
+
+
+    SOLITUDE
+
+
+    Solitude is like a rain
+    That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
+    It floats remote across the far-off plain
+    Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
+    Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
+    Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
+    When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
+    When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
+    Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
+    When men with quiet hatred burning deep
+    Together in a common bed must sleep--
+    Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
+    Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan ...
+
+
+
+
+    KINGS IN LEGENDS
+
+
+    Kings in old legends seem
+    Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+    They blind all with their gleam,
+    Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+    Their robes are edged with bands
+    Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+    With richly jeweled hands
+    They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
+
+
+
+
+    THE KNIGHT
+
+
+    The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
+    Into the roar of the world.
+    And here is Life: the vines in the vale
+    And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
+    And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
+    God's flags afloat on every wall
+    In a thousand streets unfurled.
+
+    Beneath the armour of the Knight
+    Behind the chain's black links
+    Death crouches and thinks and thinks:
+    "When will the sword's blade sharp and bright
+    Forth from the scabbard spring
+    And cut the network of the cloak
+    Enmeshing me ring on ring--
+    When will the foe's delivering stroke
+    Set me free
+    To dance
+    And sing?"
+
+
+
+
+    THE BOY
+
+
+    I wish I might become like one of these
+    Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
+    With torches flaming out like loosened hair
+    On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.
+    I wish to stand as on a boat and dare
+    The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
+    In darkness but with helmet made of gold
+    That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,
+    Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
+    With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,
+    Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.
+    One stands by me and blows a blast apace
+    On his great flashing trumpet and the sound
+    Shrieks through the vast black solitude around
+    Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.
+    The houses fall behind us on their knees,
+    Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
+    The great squares yieled to us and them we seize--
+    And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.
+
+
+
+
+    INITIATION
+
+
+    Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,
+    Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,
+    And far in the dim distance leave thy home,
+    Whosoever thou art.
+    Lift thine eyes which lingering see
+    The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
+    Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree
+    That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,
+    And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise
+    Like words that in the silence clearer grow;
+    As they unfold before thy will to know
+    Gently withdraw thine eyes--
+
+
+
+
+    THE NEIGHBOUR
+
+
+    Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?
+    In many foreign cities, far away,
+    Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.
+    Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?
+
+    Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed
+    Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,
+
+    Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?
+    Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?
+    Why am I the neighbour always
+    Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?
+    Life is more heavy--thy song says--
+    Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.
+
+
+
+
+    SONG OF THE STATUE
+
+
+    Who so loveth me that he
+    Will give his precious life for me?
+    I shall be set free from the stone
+    If some one drowns for me in the sea,
+    I shall have life, life of my own,--
+    For life I ache.
+
+    I long for the singing blood,
+    The stone is so still and cold.
+    I dream of life, life is good.
+    Will no one love me and be bold
+    And me awake?
+
+    -------------------------------
+
+    I weep and weep alone,
+    Weep always for my stone.
+    What joy is my blood to me
+    If it ripens like red wine?
+    It cannot call back from the sea
+    The life that was given for mine,
+    Given for Love's sake.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. I
+
+
+    Others must by a long dark way
+    Stray to the mystic bards,
+    Or ask some one who has heard them sing
+    Or touch the magic chords.
+    Only the maidens question not
+    The bridges that lead to Dream;
+    Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls
+    On a silver vase agleam.
+
+    The maidens' doors of Life lead out
+    Where the song of the poet soars,
+    And out beyond to the great world--
+    To the world beyond the doors.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. II
+
+
+    Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
+    How solitary and remote you are,
+    As night is lighted by one high bright star
+    They draw light from the distance where you dwell.
+
+    For poet you must always maiden be
+    Even though his eyes the woman in you wake
+    Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,
+    Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.
+
+    Within his garden let him wait alone
+    Where benches stand expectant in the shade
+    Within the chamber where the lyre was played
+    Where he received you as the eternal One.
+
+    Go! It grows dark--your voice and form no more
+    His senses seek; he now no longer sees
+    A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
+    Along the pathway where it gleamed before.
+
+    He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
+    And he loves much the silent chamber where
+    Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
+    He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.
+
+    The softly stealing echo comes again
+    From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;
+    And many see you there--so his thought runs--
+    And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE BRIDE
+
+
+    Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!
+    Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;
+    The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps
+    Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
+
+    O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,
+    Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
+    Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
+    I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out ...
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMNAL DAY
+
+
+    Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
+    Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
+    And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.
+
+    Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
+    Give to them two more burning days and press
+    The last sweetness into the heavy wine.
+
+    He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
+    Who is alone will now remain alone;
+    He will awake, will read, will letters write
+    Through the long day and in the lonely night;
+    And restless, solitary, he will rove
+    Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.
+
+
+
+
+    MOONLIGHT NIGHT
+
+
+    South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above
+    Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.
+    From the old tower the hours fall heavily
+    Into the dark as though into the sea--
+    A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,
+    Then for a while void silence fills the air;
+    And then a violin (from God knows where)
+    Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love ... Oh Love ...
+
+
+
+
+    IN APRIL
+
+
+    Again the woods are odorous, the lark
+    Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
+    That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
+    Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
+
+    After long rainy afternoons an hour
+    Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
+    Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
+    And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
+
+    Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
+    By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
+    And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
+    In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
+
+
+
+
+    MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
+
+
+    The darkness hung like richness in the room
+    When like a dream the mother entered there
+    And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air
+    Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.
+
+    The room betrayed the mother--so she felt--
+    She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here?"
+    And with a gesture that he held most dear
+    Down for a moment by his side she knelt.
+
+    Toward the piano they both shyly glanced
+    For she would sing to him on many a night,
+    And the child seated in the fading light
+    Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
+
+    His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow
+    Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent
+    And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
+    Moving as though against a drift of snow.
+
+
+
+
+   DEATH
+
+
+   Before us great Death stands
+   Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
+   When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine
+   To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
+   And ecstasy through all our being leaps--
+   Death bows his head and weeps.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ASHANTEE
+                    (Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
+
+
+    No vision of exotic southern countries,
+    No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
+    Whirling from out their falling draperies
+    To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;
+
+    No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,
+    No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids
+    Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,
+    No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.
+
+    Only mouths widening with a still broad smile
+    Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
+    At white men, at their vanity and guile,
+    An understanding that fills one with fear.
+
+    The beasts in cages much more loyal are,
+    Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,
+    Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
+    Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.
+
+    They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
+    Consumed by longings over which they brood,
+    Oblivious of time, without desire,
+    Alone and lost in their great solitude.
+
+
+
+
+    REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+    Expectant and waiting you muse
+    On the great rare thing which alone
+    To enhance your life you would choose:
+    The awakening of the stone,
+    The deeps where yourself you would lose.
+
+    In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
+    Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
+    And you think of countries once crossed,
+    Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
+    Of the women that you have lost.
+
+    And it comes to you then at last--
+    And you rise for you are aware
+    Of a year in the far off past
+    With its wonder and fear and prayer.
+
+
+
+
+    MUSIC
+
+
+    What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole
+    Like wandering steps, like a whisper--then mute;
+    What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul
+    Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
+
+    And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,
+    It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;
+    Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
+    Is the longing that through your music sighs.
+
+    Let your flute be still and your soul float through
+    Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,
+    For here your song lived and it wisely grew
+    Before it was forced into melody.
+
+    Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,
+    Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!
+    Now it no longer steals over my walls--
+    But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDEN MELANCHOLY
+
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    As from some myth of old.
+
+    He came! You felt yourself entwined
+    As a great storm would round you wind.
+    He went! A blessing undefined
+    Seemed left, as when church-bells declined
+    And left you wrapt in prayer.
+    You fain would cry aloud--but bind
+    Your scarf about you and tear-blind
+    Weep softly in its fold.
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    Full armored forth to fare.
+
+    His smile was luminously kind
+    Like glint of ivory enshrined,
+    Like a home longing undivined,
+    Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,
+    Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,
+    Like moonlight silver when combined
+    With a loved book's rare gold.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION
+
+                    (Paris in May, 1903)
+
+
+    The white veiled maids to confirmation go
+    Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;
+    Their childhood they are leaving now behind:
+    The future will be different, they know.
+
+    Oh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!
+    The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
+    The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,
+    And sadly passes by the afternoon ...
+
+    Like resurrection were the garments white
+    The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide
+    Into the church, as cool as silk inside,
+    With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:
+    The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
+    To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.
+
+    Then through the silence the great song rose high
+    Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
+    Then luminously, gently down it poured--
+    Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.
+
+    The wind through the white garments softly stirred
+    And they grew vari-coloured in each fold
+    And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold
+    And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,
+    And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold
+    Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.
+
+    Outside the day was one of green and blue,
+    With touches of a luminous glowing red,
+    Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
+    Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
+    Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
+    And singing sounded through the far off trees.
+
+    It was as though garlands crowned everything
+    And all things were touched softly by the sun;
+    And many windows opened one by one
+    And the light trembled on them glistening.
+
+
+
+
+    THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
+
+
+    Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
+    And lose myself--for to you I belong.
+    The hope that hitherto I have denied
+    Imperious comes to me as from your side
+    Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
+
+    Those times: the times when I was quite alone
+    By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
+    My silence was the quiet of a stone
+    Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.
+
+    But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
+    Something within me has been freed--something
+    That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
+    Which rises now within me and commands
+    And gives my poor warm life into your hands
+    Who know not what I was that Yesterday.
+
+
+
+
+    PONT DU CARROUSEL
+
+
+    Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
+    Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers
+    As though of nameless realms the boundary stone
+    About which circle distant starry hours.
+
+    He seems the center around which stars glow
+    While all earth's ostentations surge below.
+
+    Immovably and silently he stands
+    Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;
+    Past fathomless dark depths that he commands
+    A shallow generation drifting goes....
+
+
+
+
+    MADNESS
+
+
+    She thinks: I am--Have you not seen?
+    Who are you then, Marie?
+    I am a Queen, I am a Queen!
+    To your knee, to your knee!
+
+    And then she weeps: I was--a child--
+    Who were you then, Marie?
+    Know you that I was no man's child,
+    Poor and in rags--said she.
+
+    And then a Princess I became
+    To whom men bend their knees;
+    To princes things are not the same
+    As those a beggar sees.
+
+    And those things which have made you great
+    Came to you, tell me, when?
+    One night, one night, one night quite late,
+    Things became different then.
+
+    I walked the lane which presently
+    With strung chords seemed to bend;
+    Then Marie became Melody
+    And danced from end to end.
+
+    The people watched with startled mien
+    And passed with frightened glance
+    For all know that only a Queen
+    May dance in the lanes: dance!...
+
+
+
+
+    LAMENT
+
+
+    Oh! All things are long passed away and far.
+    A light is shining but the distant star
+    From which it still comes to me has been dead
+    A thousand years ... In the dim phantom boat
+    That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
+    A clock just struck within some house remote.
+    Which house?--I long to still my beating heart.
+    Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray ...
+    Of all the stars there must be far away
+    A single star which still exists apart.
+    And I believe that I should know the one
+    Which has alone endured and which alone
+    Like a white City that all space commands
+    At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.
+
+
+
+
+     SYMBOLS
+
+
+     From infinite longings finite deeds rise
+     As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
+     But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
+     And trembling from their lack of power descend--
+     So through the falling torrent of our fears
+     Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
+
+
+
+
+NEW POEMS
+
+
+
+
+    EARLY APOLLO
+
+
+    As when at times there breaks through branches bare
+    A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,
+    About this poet-head a splendour rare
+    Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.
+
+    There is as yet no shadow in his glance,
+    Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;
+    But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,
+    A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
+
+    And single petals one by one will fall
+    O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
+    --The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile
+    As though a song were rising there the while.
+
+
+
+
+    THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
+
+
+    We still remember! The same as of yore
+    All that has happened once again must be.
+    As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--
+    It was like that--your light, small breasts you bore,
+    And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.
+
+    That god--
+              who was the wanderer, the slim
+    Despoiler of fair women; he--the wise,--
+    But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
+    Who cast a shadow over your young limb
+    While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.
+
+
+
+
+    THE POET
+
+
+    You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,
+    Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;
+    Without you void would be my day and night,
+    Without you I'll not capture my great song.
+
+    I have no earthly spot where I can live,
+    I have no love, I have no household fane,
+    And all the things to which myself I give
+    Impoverish me with richness they attain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE PANTHER
+
+
+    His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
+    Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
+    It seems to him there are a thousand bars
+    And out beyond those bars the empty air.
+
+    The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
+    Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
+    Is like a dance of strength circling around,
+    While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
+
+    But there are times the pupils of his eyes
+    Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
+    Tense with the flood of visions that arise
+    Only to sink and die within his heart.
+
+
+
+
+    GROWING BLIND
+
+
+    Among all the others there sat a guest
+    Who sipped her tea as if one apart,
+    And she held her cup not quite like the rest;
+    Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.
+
+    When the group of people arose at last
+    And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
+    As lingeringly through the rooms they passed
+    I saw that she followed alone.
+
+    Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
+    Before a throng on a festal night
+    She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes
+    Were like pools which reflected light.
+
+    She followed on slowly after the last
+    As though some object must be passed by,
+    And yet as if were it once but passed
+    She would no longer walk but fly.
+
+
+
+
+    THE SPANISH DANCER
+
+
+    As a lit match first flickers in the hands
+    Before it flames, and darts out from all sides
+    Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
+    Of spectators--she, quivering, glowing stands
+    Poised tensely for the dance--then forward glides
+
+    And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.
+    Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,
+    And with a daring art at her command
+    Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
+    From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
+    Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.
+
+    And then, as though the fire fainter grows,
+    She gathers up the flame--again it glows,
+    As with proud gesture and imperious air
+    She flings it to the earth; and it lies there
+    Furiously flickering and crackling still--
+    Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
+    Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
+    And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.
+
+
+
+
+    OFFERING
+
+
+    My body glows in every vein and blooms
+    To fullest flower since I first knew thee,
+    My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;
+    Who art thou then--thou who awaitest me?
+
+    When from the past I draw myself the while
+    I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;
+    I only know the radiance of thy smile,
+    Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.
+
+    Through childhood's years I wandered unaware
+    Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests
+    To offer thee, as on an altar fair
+    That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair
+    And wreath�d by the blossoms of thy breasts.
+
+
+
+
+    LOVE SONG
+
+
+    When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
+    How shall I tune it then to other things?
+    O! That some spot in darkness could be found
+    That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.
+    But everything that touches you and me
+    Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
+    Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
+    And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
+    O! Sweet song--
+
+
+
+
+    ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
+
+
+    We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
+    Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
+    But from his torso gleaming light is shed
+    As from a candelabrum; inward bent
+    His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
+    The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
+    Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
+    Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
+    Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
+    Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
+    Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
+    Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
+    There is no spot that does not bind you fast
+    And transport you back, back to a far past.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF HOURS
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of A Monk's Life_
+
+
+
+
+    I live my life in circles that grow wide
+    And endlessly unroll,
+    I may not reach the last, but on I glide
+    Strong pinioned toward my goal.
+
+    About the old tower, dark against the sky,
+    The beat of my wings hums,
+    I circle about God, sweep far and high
+    On through milleniums.
+
+    Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
+    Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
+
+
+
+
+    Many have painted her. But there was one
+    Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
+    Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
+    When he was suffering she came to him,
+    And all the heavy pain within his heart
+    Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
+    His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
+    Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
+    Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
+    A trembling smile softly begins to dawn ...
+    Though angels with seven candles light the place
+    You cannot read the secret of her face.
+
+
+
+
+    In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
+    In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
+    They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
+    And I dream of young Titians and of others
+    In which the God with shining radiance glows.
+
+    But though my vigil constantly I keep
+    My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
+    A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
+    I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
+    More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
+    My branches only are swayed by the wind.
+
+
+
+
+    Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
+    Against thee all my surging senses sing?
+    About thy face in circles drawing near
+    My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
+
+    Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
+    In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
+    But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
+    Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
+
+    When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
+    But when thou art awake I am thy Will
+    Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
+    Expanding like far space star-lit and still
+    Into the distant mystic realm of Time.
+
+
+
+
+    I love my life's dark hours
+    In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
+    While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
+    Or letters old, I magically steep
+    Myself in days gone by: again I give
+    Myself unto the past:--again I live.
+
+    Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
+    Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...
+
+    Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
+    Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
+    'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
+    And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
+    Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
+    Are lost once more in sadness and in song.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Pilgrimage_
+
+
+
+
+    By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
+    That like a whisper floats about all men,
+    The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+    After the hour has struck, to close again.
+
+    And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+    And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+    As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
+    So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.
+
+
+
+
+    All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
+    And those who find would bind Thee
+    To gesture and to form.
+
+    But I would comprehend Thee
+    As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
+    Thou growest with my maturity,
+    Thou Art in calm and storm.
+
+    I ask of Thee no vanity
+    To evidence and prove Thee.
+    Thou Wert in eons old.
+
+    Perform no miracles for me,
+    But justify Thy laws to me
+    Which, as the years pass by me.
+    All soundlessly unfold.
+
+
+
+
+    In a house was one who arose from the feast
+    And went forth to wander in distant lands,
+    Because there was somewhere far off in the East
+    A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
+    And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
+    Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.
+
+    In another house was the one who had died,
+    Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
+    And ever within the walls did abide--
+    For out of the house he could no more pass.
+    And his children set forth to seek for the spot
+    Where stands the great Church which he forgot.
+
+
+
+
+    Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
+    Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
+    And without feet I still can follow you,
+    And without voice I still can to you call.
+    Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
+    Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
+    Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
+    As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
+    And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
+    Through all the singing currents of my blood.
+
+
+
+
+    In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
+    To seek you over the wide world I roam,
+    For all abundance is but meager measure
+    Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.
+
+    Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
+    Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
+    You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
+    Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?
+
+    My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
+    Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
+    To find you before day to night has drifted;
+    I reach out into space to seek you there ...
+
+    Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
+    Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
+    You come, and over earth a magic vesture
+    Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Poverty and Death_
+
+
+
+
+    Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
+    That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
+    But that had once from Life received all this
+    Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
+    From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
+    A thing apart, a parable in stone.
+
+
+
+
+    Alone Thou wanderest through space,
+    Profound One with the hidden face;
+    Thou art Poverty's great rose,
+    The eternal metamorphose
+    Of gold into the light of sun.
+
+    Thou art the mystic homeless One;
+    Into the world Thou never came,
+    Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
+    Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
+    Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!
+
+
+
+
+    A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
+    Make me a listener at Thy stone,
+    Give to me vision and then wake me
+    Upon Thy oceans all alone.
+    Thy rivers' courses let me follow
+    Where they leap the crags in their flight
+    And where at dusk in caverns hollow
+    They croon to music of the night.
+    Send me far into Thy barren land
+    Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
+    Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
+    August symbols of unlived lives.
+    There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
+    And behind them a blind man goes:
+    With him I will walk till day is done
+    Up the pathway that no one knows ...
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poems
+
+Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+Translator: Jessie Lemont
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2012 [EBook #38594]
+Last Updated: October 4, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe
+
+(Images generously made available by the
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h1>POEMS</h1>
+
+<h3>by</h3>
+
+<h2>RAINER MARIA RILKE</h2>
+
+
+<h4>Translated by Jessie Lamont</h4>
+
+<h4>With an Introduction by H.T.</h4>
+
+
+<h5>New York</h5>
+
+<h5>Tobias A. Wright</h5>
+
+<h5>1918</h5>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 0.8em;">
+TO THE MEMORY OF<br />
+AUGUSTE RODIN<br />
+THROUGH WHOM I CAME TO KNOW<br />
+RAINER MARIA RILKE<br />
+</p>
+<hr />
+<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 10%;">CONTENTS</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 10%;">
+<i>Introduction:</i><br />
+The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke<br />
+<br />
+<i><a href="#FIRST_POEMS">First Poems</a>:</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EVENING">Evening</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MARY_VIRGIN">Mary Virgin</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_BOOK_OF_PICTURES"><i>The Book of Pictures:</i></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PRESAGING">Presaging</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AUTUMN">Autumn</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SILENT_HOUR">Silent Hour</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ANGELS">The Angels</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SOLITUDE">Solitude</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#KINGS_IN_LEGENDS">Kings in Legends</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_KNIGHT">The Knight</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_BOY">The Boy</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#INITIATION">Initiation</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_NEIGHBOUR">The Neighbour</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SONG_OF_THE_STATUE">Song of the Statue</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAIDENS_I">Maidens I</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAIDENS_II">Maidens II</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_BRIDE">The Bride</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AUTUMNAL_DAY">Autumnal Day</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MOONLIGHT_NIGHT">Moonlight Night</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#IN_APRIL">In April</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MEMORIES_OF_A_CHILDHOOD">Memories of a Childhood</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#DEATH">Death</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ASHANTEE">The Ashantee</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#REMEMBRANCE">Remembrance</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MUSIC">Music</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAIDEN_MELANCHOLY">Maiden Melancholy</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAIDENS_AT_CONFIRMATION">Maidens at Confirmation</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_WOMAN_WHO_LOVES">The Woman who Loves</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#PONT_DU_CARROUSEL">Pont du Carrousel</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MADNESS">Madness</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LAMENT">Lament</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SYMBOLS">Symbols</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i><a href="#NEW_POEMS">New Poems</a>:</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#EARLY_APOLLO">Early Apollo</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_TOMB_OF_A_YOUNG_GIRL">The Tomb of a Young Girl</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_POET">The Poet</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_PANTHER">The Panther</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GROWING_BLIND">Growing Blind</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_SPANISH_DANCER">The Spanish Dancer</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#OFFERING">Offering</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOVE_SONG">Love Song</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#ARCHAIC_TORSO_OF_APOLLO">Archaic Torso of Apollo</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i><a href="#THE_BOOK_OF_HOURS">The Book of Hours</a>:</i>
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i><a href="#The_Book_of_A_Monks_Life">The Book of a Monk's Life</a></i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#I_live_my_life_in_circles">I Live my Life in Circles</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#Many_have_painted_her">Many have Painted Her</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#In_cassocks_clad">In Cassocks Clad</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#Thou_Anxious_One">Thou Anxious One</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#I_love_my_lifes_dark_hours">I Love My Life's Dark Hours</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#The_Book_of_Pilgrimage"><i>The Book of Pilgrimage</i></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#By_day_Thou_are_the_Legend_and_the_Dream">By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#All_those_who_seek_Thee">All Those Who Seek Thee</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#In_a_house_was_one">In a House Was One</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#Extinguish_my_eyes">Extinguish My Eyes</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#In_the_deep_nights">In the Deep Nights</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#The_Book_of_Poverty_and_Death"><i>The Book of Poverty and Death</i></a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#Her_mouth">Her Mouth</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#Alone_Thou_wanderest">Alone Thou Wanderest</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><a href="#A_watcher_of_Thy_spaces">A Watcher of Thy Spaces</a></span>
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h3>POEMS OF RAINER MARIA RILKE</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h4>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p style="font-size: 0.8em;">Acknowledgment</p>
+
+
+<p style="font-size: 0.8em;">To the Editors of Poetry&mdash;A magazine of Verse, and Poet Lore, the
+translator is indebted for permission to reprint certain poems in this
+book&mdash;also to the compilers of the following anthologies&mdash;Amphora II
+edited by Thomas Bird Mosher&mdash;The Catholic Anthology of World Poetry
+selected by Carl van Doren. Titlepage: Dugald Stewart Walker.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>THE POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE</h4>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">εἶσὶ γὰρ οὖν, οἳ ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς κυοῦσιν</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 18.5em;">Plato</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The supreme problem of every age is that of finding its consummate
+artistic expression. Before this problem every other remains of
+secondary importance. History defines and directs its physical course,
+science cooperates in the achievement of its material aims, but Art
+alone gives to the age its spiritual physiognomy, its ultimate and
+lasting expression.</p>
+
+<p>The process of Art is on the one hand sensuous, the conception having
+for its basis the fineness of organization of the senses; and on the
+other hand it is severely scientific, the value of the creation being
+dependent upon the craftsmanship, the mastery over the tool, the
+technique.</p>
+
+<p>Art, like Nature, its great and only reservoir for all time past and all
+time to come, ever strives for elimination and selection. It is severe
+and aristocratic in the application of its laws and impervious to appeal
+to serve other than its own aims. Its purpose is the symbolization of
+Life. In its sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment,
+the serene, final, and imperturbable solitude which is the ultimate
+criterion of all great things created.</p>
+
+<p>To speak of Poetry is to speak of the most subtle, the most delicate,
+and the most accurate instrument by which to measure Life.</p>
+
+<p>Poetry is reality's essence visioned and made manifest by one endowed
+with a perception acutely sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and
+gifted with a power to shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the
+reaction to Life's phenomena. The poet moulds that which appears
+evanescent and ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values.
+In this act of creation he serves eternity.</p>
+
+<p>Poetry, in especial lyrical poetry, must be acknowledged the supreme
+art, culminating as it does in a union of the other arts, the musical,
+the plastic, and the pictorial.</p>
+
+<p>The most eminent contemporary poets of Europe have, each in accordance
+with his individual temperament, reflected in their work the spiritual
+essence of our age, its fears and failures, its hopes and high
+achievements: Maeterlinck, with his mood of resignation and his
+retirement into a dusky twilight where his shadowy figures move
+noiselessly like phantoms in fate-laden dimness; Dehmel, the worshipper
+of will, with his passion for materiality and the beauty of all things
+physical and tangible; Verhaeren, the visionary of a new vitality, who
+sees in the toilers of fields and factories the heroic gesture of our
+time and who might have written its great epic of industry but for the
+overwhelming lyrical mood of his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Until a few years ago, known only to a relatively small community on the
+continent but commanding an ever increasing attention which has borne
+his name far beyond the boundary of his country, the personality of
+Rainer Maria Rilke stands to-day beside the most illustrious poets of
+modern Europe.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The background against which the figure of Rainer Maria Rilke is
+silhouetted is so varied, the influences which have entered into his
+life are so manifold, that a study of his work, however slight, must
+needs take into consideration the elements through which this poet has
+matured into a great master.</p>
+
+<p>Prague, the city in which Rilke was born in 1875, with its sinister
+palaces and crumbling towers that rose in the early Middle Ages and have
+reached out into our time like the threatening fingers of mighty hands
+which have wielded swords for generations and which are stained with the
+blood of many wounds of many races; the city where amid grey old ruins
+blonde maidens are at play or are lost in reverie in the green cool
+parks and shady gardens with which the Bohemian capital abounds, this
+Prague of mingled grotesqueness and beauty gave to the young boy his
+first impressions.</p>
+
+<p>There is a period in the life of every artist when his whole being seems
+lost in a contemplation of the surrounding world, when the application
+to work is difficult, like the violent forcing of something that is
+awaiting its time. This is the time of his dream, as sacred as the days
+of early spring before wind and rain and light have touched the fruits
+of the fields, when there is a tense bleak silence over the whole of
+nature, in which is wrapped the strength of storms and the glow of the
+summer's sun. This is the time of his deepest dream, and upon this dream
+and its guarding depends the final realization of his life's work.</p>
+
+<p>The young graduate of the Gymnasium was to enter upon the career of an
+army officer in accordance with the traditions of the family, an old
+noble house which traces its lineage far back to Carinthian ancestry.
+His inclinations, however, pointed so decisively in the direction of the
+finer arts of life that he left the Military Academy after a very short
+attendance to devote himself to the study of philosophy and the history
+of art.</p>
+
+<p>As one turns the pages of Rilke's first small book of poems, published
+originally under the title <i>Larenopfer</i>, in the year 1895, and which
+appeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name <i>Erste
+Gedichte</i>, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in the
+presentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovingly
+over the dream of his boyhood. As the title indicates, these poems are a
+tribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town.
+Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme of
+almost every one of these poems. The meadows, the maidens, the dark
+river in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising like
+grey mists are seen with a wonderment, the great well-spring of all
+poetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through all these
+poems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude for
+the ability to thus vision the world, to be sunk in the music of all
+things. "Without is everything that I feel within myself, and without
+and within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable."</p>
+
+<p>These pictures of town and landscape are never separated from their
+personal relation to the poet. He feels too keenly his dependence upon
+them, as a child views flowers and stars as personal possessions. Not
+until later was he to reach the height of an impersonal objectivity in
+his art. What distinguishes these early poems from similar adolescent
+productions is the restraint in the presentation, the economy and
+intensity of expression and that quality of listening to the inner voice
+of things which renders the poet the seer of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The second book of poems appeared two years later and like the first
+volume <i>Traumgekrönt</i> is full of the music that is reminiscent of the
+mild melancholy of the Bohemian folk-songs, in whose gentle rhythms the
+barbaric strength of the race seems to be lulled to rest as the waves of
+a far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. The themes of
+<i>Traumgekrönt</i> are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environment
+of Prague and some of the most beautiful poems are luminous pictures of
+villages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June, out of which
+rises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing.
+In these first two volumes the poet is satisfied with painting in words,
+full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world. From this period dates
+the small poem <i>Evening</i>, which seems to have been sketched by a
+Japanese painter, so clear and colourful is its texture, so precious and
+precise are its outlines.</p>
+
+<p>With <i>Advent</i> and <i>Mir Zur Feier</i>, both published within the following
+three years, a phase of questioning commences, a dim desire begins to
+stir to reach out into the larger world "deep into life, out beyond
+time." Whereas the early poems were characterized by a tendency to turn
+away from the turmoil of life&mdash;in fact, the concrete world of reality
+does not seem to exist&mdash;there is noticeable in these two later volumes
+an advance toward life in the sense that the poet is beginning to
+approach and to vision some of its greatest symbols.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the entire work of Rilke, in his poetry as well as in his
+interpretations of painting and sculpture, there are two elements that
+constitute the cornerstones in the structure of his art. If, as has been
+said with a degree of verity, Nietzsche was primarily a musician whose
+philosophy had for its basis and took its ultimate aspects from the
+musical quality of his artistic endowment, it may be maintained with an
+equal amount of truth that Rilke is primarily a painter and sculptor
+whose poetry rests upon the fundaments of the pictorial and plastic
+arts.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the time of the publication of these volumes, Rilke's poems
+possessed a quietude, a stillness suggested in the straight unbroken yet
+delicate lines of the picture which he portrays and in the soft, almost
+unpulsating rhythm of his words. The approach of evening or nightfall,
+the coming of dawn, the change of the seasons, the slow changes of light
+into darkness and of darkness into light, in short, the most silent yet
+greatest metamorphoses in the external aspects of nature form the
+contents of many of these first poems. The inanimate object and the
+living creature in nature are not seen in the sharp contours of their
+isolation; they are viewed and interpreted in the atmosphere that
+surrounds them, in which they are enwrapped and so densely veiled that
+the outlines are only dimly visible, be that atmosphere the mystic grey
+of northern twilight or the dark velvety blue of southern summer nights.
+In <i>Advent</i>, the experience of the atmosphere becomes an experience in
+his innermost soul and, therefore, all things become of value to him
+only in so far as they partake of the atmosphere, as they are seen in a
+peculiar air and distance. This first phase in Rilke's work may be
+defined as the phase of reposeful nature.</p>
+
+<p>To this sphere of relaxation and restfulness in which the objects are
+static and are changed only as the surrounding atmosphere affects them,
+the second phase in the poet's development adds another element, which
+later was to grow into dimensions so powerful, so violently breaking
+beyond the limitations of simple expression in words that it could only
+find its satisfaction in a dithyrambic hymn to the work of the great
+plastic artist of our time, to the creations of Auguste Rodin. This
+second element is that which the French sculptor in a different medium
+has carried to perfection. It is the element of gesture, of dramatic
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>This might seem the appropriate place in which to speak of Rilke's
+monograph on the art of Rodin. To do so would, however, be an undue
+anticipation, for it will be necessary to trace Rilke's development
+through several transitions before the value of his contact with the
+work of Rodin can be fully measured.</p>
+
+<p>The gesture, the movement begins in <i>Advent</i> and <i>Celebration</i> to
+disturb the stillness prevailing in the first two volumes of poems. Even
+here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of
+wind over a quiet sea; and gentle beings make this first gesture,
+children and young women at play, singing, dancing or at prayer.</p>
+
+<p>Particularly in the cycle <i>Songs of the Maidens</i> in the book
+<i>Celebration</i>, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic
+background of the landscape against which the gesture of longing or
+expectation is seen and felt. It is the impatience to burst into
+blossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these <i>Songs of the
+Maidens</i> with the tenseness of suspense. <i>The Prayers of the Maidens to
+Mary</i> have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with the
+ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly
+Virgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love and
+motherhood. This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued and
+is only heard like the cadence of a far off dream:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%;">
+"How shall I go on tiptoe<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">From childhood to Annunciation</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Through the dim twilight</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Into Thy Garden?"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Mention should be made of some prose writings which Rilke published in
+the year 1898 and shortly afterward. They are <i>Two Stories of Prague</i>,
+<i>The Touch of Life</i> and <i>The Last</i>; three volumes of short stories; a
+two-act drama, <i>The Daily Life</i>, points to a strong Maeterlinck
+influence, and finally <i>Stories of God</i>. With both beauty of detail and
+problematic interest, the short stories show an incoherence of treatment
+and a lack of dramatic co-ordination easily conceivable in a poet who is
+essentially lyrical and who at that time had not mastered the means of
+technique to give to his characters the clear chiselling of the epic
+form.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A sojourn in Russia and especially the acquaintance with the novels of
+Dostoievsky became potent factors in Rilke's development and served to
+deepen creations which without this influence might have terminated in a
+grandiose æsthesia.</p>
+
+<p>Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as
+springing from an ethical impulse and as having for their motive power
+and <i>raison d'être</i> the tendency toward socio-political reform, in
+contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose
+motives and aims are primarily of an æsthetic nature and seek in art the
+reconciliation of the dualism between spirit and matter.</p>
+
+<p>Dostoievsky, whom Merejkovsky describes somewhere as the man with the
+never-young face, the face "with its shadows of suffering and its
+wrinkles of sunken-in cheeks ... but that which gives to this face its
+most tortured expression is its seeming immobility, the suddenly
+interrupted impulse, the life hardened into a stone:" this Dostoievsky
+and particularly his <i>Rodion Raskolnikov</i> cycle became a profound
+artistic experience to Rilke. The poor, the outcasts, the homeless ones
+received for him a new significance, the significance of the isolated
+figure placed in the mighty everchanging current of a life in which this
+figure stands strong and solitary. In the poem entitled <i>Pont Du
+Carrousel</i>, written in Paris a few years later, Rilke has visioned the
+blind beggar aloof amid the fluctuating crowds of the metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>Of Russia and its influence upon him, Rilke writes: "Russia became for
+me the reality and the deep daily realization that reality is something
+that comes infinitely slowly to those who have patience. Russia is the
+country where men are solitary, each one with a world within himself,
+each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating
+himself, and because of that truly pious. Here the words of men are only
+fragile bridges above their real life."</p>
+
+<p>The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
+art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
+selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
+1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
+as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
+Advent:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%;">
+"That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To have no home in the present.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And these are wishes: gentle dialogues</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of the poor hours with eternity."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>With <i>Das Buch der Bilder</i> the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
+lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
+our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
+depths of myth <i>The Kings in Legends</i>, or whether we read from <i>The
+Chronicle of a Monk</i> the awe-inspiring description of <i>The Last Judgment
+Day</i>, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see <i>The Maidens at
+Confirmation</i>, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
+finality of the typical.</p>
+
+<p>It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
+Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer." Hauptmann,
+like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
+his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
+thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
+reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
+social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In <i>The Book of Pictures</i>, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
+might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
+the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
+an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
+<i>The Men of the House of Colonna</i>, <i>The Czars</i>, <i>Charles XII Riding
+Through the Ukraine</i> are portrayed each with his individual historical
+gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
+they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, <i>Kings in Legends</i>, this
+concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
+expression:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%;">
+"Kings in old legends seem<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Like mountains rising in the evening light.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">They blind all with their gleam,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Their robes are edged with bands</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of precious stones&mdash;the rarest earth affords&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With richly jeweled hands</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">They hold their slender, shining, naked swords."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There are in <i>The Book of Pictures</i> poems in which this will to
+concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
+lyrical poems as in <i>Initiation</i>, that stands out in this volume like
+"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
+aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
+the poem entitled <i>Autumn</i>, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
+in all nature.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Book of Hours</i>, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
+weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
+the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
+forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
+within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
+understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of <i>Das
+Stunden-Buch</i> is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
+these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
+prayer of reconciliation and triumph.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Book of Hours</i> contains three parts written at different periods in
+the poet's life: <i>The Book of a Monk's Life</i> (1899); <i>The Book of
+Pilgrimage</i> (1901), and <i>The Book of Poverty and Death</i> (1903), although
+the entire volume was not published until several years later. <i>The Book
+of Hours</i> glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
+this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in <i>The Book
+of a Monk's Life</i> builds up about God parables, images and legends
+reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
+by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
+force. The motif of <i>The Monk's Life</i> is expressed in the poem beginning
+with the lines:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%;">
+"I live my life in circles that grow wide<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And endlessly unroll."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
+magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
+in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
+him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.</p>
+
+<p>There are poems in <i>The Book of Pilgrimage</i> of the stillness of a
+whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
+their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
+book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
+withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
+the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
+silent world:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%;">
+"By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That like a whisper floats about all men,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">After the hour has struck, to close again.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And when the day with drowsy gesture bends</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The last part of <i>The Book of Hours</i>, <i>The Book of Poverty and Death</i>,
+is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
+the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
+demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
+the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
+nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
+and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
+development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
+negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
+positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
+or created in the domain of art.</p>
+
+<p>In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
+because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
+forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
+inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
+profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
+strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
+The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
+significance of Rilke's <i>Book of Hours</i>. A distinguished Scandinavian
+writer has pronounced <i>Das Stunden-Buch</i> one of the supreme literary
+achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
+prayer.</p>
+
+<p>In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
+high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
+into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: <i>The Sketch of Malte
+Laurids Brigge</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In <i>New Poems</i> (1907) and <i>New Poems, Second Part</i> (1908) the historical
+figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
+proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
+the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
+human destiny. <i>Abishag</i> presents the contrast between the dawning and
+the fading life; <i>David Singing Before Saul</i> shows the impatience of
+awakening ambition, and <i>Joshua</i> is the man who forces even God to do
+his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
+poems <i>Eranna to Sappho</i>, <i>Lament for Antinous</i>, <i>Early Apollo</i> and the
+<i>Archaic Torso of Apollo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
+superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
+important among which are <i>The Cathedral</i>, <i>God in the Middle Ages</i>,
+<i>Saint Sebastian</i> personifying martyrdom, and <i>The Rose Window</i>, whose
+glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
+Modern Paris is often the background of the <i>New Poems</i>, and the crass
+play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
+the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
+flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
+warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
+images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
+technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of <i>The Book of
+Pictures</i> is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
+and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
+convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
+all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these <i>New Poems</i> are not
+quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
+Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
+<i>The Spanish Dancer</i>, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
+vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
+momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
+art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
+grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.</p>
+
+<hr  />
+
+<p>Many of the themes in the <i>New Poems</i> bear testimony to the fact that
+Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
+Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
+at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
+entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
+of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
+landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
+landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
+melancholy beauty entered into his own work.</p>
+
+<p>More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
+of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
+his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
+life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The <i>New Poems</i>
+bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
+twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
+of a friend and that of an artist.</p>
+
+<p>One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
+features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
+white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
+moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
+the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
+time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
+slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
+on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
+mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
+of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
+listening to some distant music.</p>
+
+<p>From no other book of his, not excepting <i>The Book of Hours</i>, can we
+deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
+we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.</p>
+
+<p>Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
+"power of servitude in all nature." For this reason the book on Rodin is
+far more than a purely æsthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
+traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
+itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
+deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
+religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
+begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
+became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
+summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name." And
+he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
+has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
+was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
+significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
+in just this renunciation lay his triumph&mdash;for Life entered into his
+work."</p>
+
+<p>Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
+creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
+remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
+consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
+mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
+visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
+and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 75%;">H.T.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 0.8em;">
+NEW YORK CITY,<br />
+AUTUMN, 1918.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a name="FIRST_POEMS" id="FIRST_POEMS"></a><span class="caption">FIRST POEMS</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="EVENING" id="EVENING"></a>EVENING<br />
+<br />
+The bleak fields are asleep,<br />
+My heart alone wakes;<br />
+The evening in the harbour<br />
+Down his red sails takes.<br />
+<br />
+Night, guardian of dreams,<br />
+Now wanders through the land;<br />
+The moon, a lily white,<br />
+Blossoms within her hand.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MARY_VIRGIN" id="MARY_VIRGIN"></a>MARY VIRGIN<br />
+<br />
+How came, how came from out thy night<br />
+Mary, so much light<br />
+And so much gloom:<br />
+Who was thy bridegroom?<br />
+<br />
+Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot<br />
+That thou the same art not<br />
+Who came to me<br />
+In thy Virginity.<br />
+<br />
+I am still so blossoming, so young.<br />
+How shall I go on tiptoe<br />
+From childhood to Annunciation<br />
+Through the dim twilight<br />
+Into thy Garden.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br /><span class="caption"><a id="THE_BOOK_OF_PICTURES"></a>THE BOOK OF PICTURES</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="PRESAGING" id="PRESAGING"></a>PRESAGING<br />
+<br />
+I am like a flag unfurled in space,<br />
+I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,<br />
+While the things beneath are not yet stirring,<br />
+While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys<br />
+And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy&mdash;<br />
+Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea<br />
+And expand and withdraw into myself<br />
+And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="AUTUMN" id="AUTUMN"></a>AUTUMN<br />
+<br />
+The leaves fall, fall as from far,<br />
+Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;<br />
+They fall with slow and lingering descent.<br />
+<br />
+And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls<br />
+From out the stars into the Solitude.<br />
+<br />
+Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall<br />
+And lo! the other one:&mdash;it is the law.<br />
+But there is One who holds this falling<br />
+Infinitely softly in His hands.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="SILENT_HOUR" id="SILENT_HOUR"></a>SILENT HOUR<br />
+<br />
+Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world<br />
+Weeps without cause in the world<br />
+Weeps over me.<br />
+<br />
+Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night<br />
+Laughs without cause in the night<br />
+Laughs at me.<br />
+<br />
+Whoever wanders somewhere in the world<br />
+Wanders in vain in the world<br />
+Wanders to me.<br />
+<br />
+Whoever dies somewhere in the world<br />
+Dies without cause in the world<br />
+Looks at me.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_ANGELS" id="THE_ANGELS"></a>THE ANGELS<br />
+<br />
+They all have tired mouths<br />
+And luminous, illimitable souls;<br />
+And a longing (as if for sin)<br />
+Trembles at times through their dreams.<br />
+<br />
+They all resemble one another,<br />
+In God's garden they are silent<br />
+Like many, many intervals<br />
+In His mighty melody.<br />
+<br />
+But when they spread their wings<br />
+They awaken the winds<br />
+That stir as though God<br />
+With His far-reaching master hands<br />
+Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="SOLITUDE" id="SOLITUDE"></a>SOLITUDE<br />
+<br />
+Solitude is like a rain<br />
+That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;<br />
+It floats remote across the far-off plain<br />
+Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,<br />
+Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.<br />
+Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour<br />
+When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;<br />
+When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power<br />
+Sad, disappointed from each other turn;<br />
+When men with quiet hatred burning deep<br />
+Together in a common bed must sleep&mdash;<br />
+Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn<br />
+Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan ...<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="KINGS_IN_LEGENDS" id="KINGS_IN_LEGENDS"></a>KINGS IN LEGENDS<br />
+<br />
+Kings in old legends seem<br />
+Like mountains rising in the evening light.<br />
+They blind all with their gleam,<br />
+Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,<br />
+Their robes are edged with bands<br />
+Of precious stones&mdash;the rarest earth affords&mdash;<br />
+With richly jeweled hands<br />
+They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_KNIGHT" id="THE_KNIGHT"></a>THE KNIGHT<br />
+<br />
+The Knight rides forth in coat of mail<br />
+Into the roar of the world.<br />
+And here is Life: the vines in the vale<br />
+And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,<br />
+And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;<br />
+God's flags afloat on every wall<br />
+In a thousand streets unfurled.<br />
+<br />
+Beneath the armour of the Knight<br />
+Behind the chain's black links<br />
+Death crouches and thinks and thinks:<br />
+"When will the sword's blade sharp and bright<br />
+Forth from the scabbard spring<br />
+And cut the network of the cloak<br />
+Enmeshing me ring on ring&mdash;<br />
+When will the foe's delivering stroke<br />
+Set me free<br />
+To dance<br />
+And sing?"<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_BOY" id="THE_BOY"></a>THE BOY<br />
+<br />
+I wish I might become like one of these<br />
+Who, in the night on horses wild astride,<br />
+With torches flaming out like loosened hair<br />
+On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.<br />
+I wish to stand as on a boat and dare<br />
+The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled<br />
+In darkness but with helmet made of gold<br />
+That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,<br />
+Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow<br />
+With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,<br />
+Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.<br />
+One stands by me and blows a blast apace<br />
+On his great flashing trumpet and the sound<br />
+Shrieks through the vast black solitude around<br />
+Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.<br />
+The houses fall behind us on their knees,<br />
+Before us bend the streets and them we gain,<br />
+The great squares yieled to us and them we seize&mdash;<br />
+And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="INITIATION" id="INITIATION"></a>INITIATION<br />
+<br />
+Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,<br />
+Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,<br />
+And far in the dim distance leave thy home,<br />
+Whosoever thou art.<br />
+Lift thine eyes which lingering see<br />
+The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,<br />
+Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree<br />
+That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,<br />
+And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise<br />
+Like words that in the silence clearer grow;<br />
+As they unfold before thy will to know<br />
+Gently withdraw thine eyes&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_NEIGHBOUR" id="THE_NEIGHBOUR"></a>THE NEIGHBOUR<br />
+<br />
+Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?<br />
+In many foreign cities, far away,<br />
+Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.<br />
+Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?<br />
+<br />
+Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed<br />
+Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,<br />
+<br />
+Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?<br />
+Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?<br />
+Why am I the neighbour always<br />
+Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?<br />
+Life is more heavy&mdash;thy song says&mdash;<br />
+Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="SONG_OF_THE_STATUE" id="SONG_OF_THE_STATUE"></a>SONG OF THE STATUE<br />
+<br />
+Who so loveth me that he<br />
+Will give his precious life for me?<br />
+I shall be set free from the stone<br />
+If some one drowns for me in the sea,<br />
+I shall have life, life of my own,&mdash;<br />
+For life I ache.<br />
+<br />
+I long for the singing blood,<br />
+The stone is so still and cold.<br />
+I dream of life, life is good.<br />
+Will no one love me and be bold<br />
+And me awake?<br />
+<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.<br />
+<br />
+I weep and weep alone,<br />
+Weep always for my stone.<br />
+What joy is my blood to me<br />
+If it ripens like red wine?<br />
+It cannot call back from the sea<br />
+The life that was given for mine,<br />
+Given for Love's sake.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MAIDENS_I" id="MAIDENS_I"></a>MAIDENS. I<br />
+<br />
+Others must by a long dark way<br />
+Stray to the mystic bards,<br />
+Or ask some one who has heard them sing<br />
+Or touch the magic chords.<br />
+Only the maidens question not<br />
+The bridges that lead to Dream;<br />
+Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls<br />
+On a silver vase agleam.<br />
+<br />
+The maidens' doors of Life lead out<br />
+Where the song of the poet soars,<br />
+And out beyond to the great world&mdash;<br />
+To the world beyond the doors.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MAIDENS_II" id="MAIDENS_II"></a>MAIDENS. II<br />
+<br />
+Maidens the poets learn from you to tell<br />
+How solitary and remote you are,<br />
+As night is lighted by one high bright star<br />
+They draw light from the distance where you dwell.<br />
+<br />
+For poet you must always maiden be<br />
+Even though his eyes the woman in you wake<br />
+Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,<br />
+Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.<br />
+<br />
+Within his garden let him wait alone<br />
+Where benches stand expectant in the shade<br />
+Within the chamber where the lyre was played<br />
+Where he received you as the eternal One.<br />
+<br />
+Go! It grows dark&mdash;your voice and form no more<br />
+His senses seek; he now no longer sees<br />
+A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees<br />
+Along the pathway where it gleamed before.<br />
+<br />
+He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,<br />
+And he loves much the silent chamber where<br />
+Like a soft whisper through the quiet air<br />
+He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.<br />
+<br />
+The softly stealing echo comes again<br />
+From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;<br />
+And many see you there&mdash;so his thought runs&mdash;<br />
+And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_BRIDE" id="THE_BRIDE"></a>THE BRIDE<br />
+<br />
+Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!<br />
+Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;<br />
+The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps<br />
+Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.<br />
+<br />
+O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,<br />
+Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,<br />
+Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float<br />
+I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out ...<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="AUTUMNAL_DAY" id="AUTUMNAL_DAY"></a>AUTUMNAL DAY<br />
+<br />
+Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:<br />
+Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces<br />
+And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.<br />
+<br />
+Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,<br />
+Give to them two more burning days and press<br />
+The last sweetness into the heavy wine.<br />
+<br />
+He who has now no house will ne'er build one,<br />
+Who is alone will now remain alone;<br />
+He will awake, will read, will letters write<br />
+Through the long day and in the lonely night;<br />
+And restless, solitary, he will rove<br />
+Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MOONLIGHT_NIGHT" id="MOONLIGHT_NIGHT"></a>MOONLIGHT NIGHT<br />
+<br />
+South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above<br />
+Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.<br />
+From the old tower the hours fall heavily<br />
+Into the dark as though into the sea&mdash;<br />
+A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,<br />
+Then for a while void silence fills the air;<br />
+And then a violin (from God knows where)<br />
+Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love ... Oh Love ...<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="IN_APRIL" id="IN_APRIL"></a>IN APRIL<br />
+<br />
+Again the woods are odorous, the lark<br />
+Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray<br />
+That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,<br />
+Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.<br />
+<br />
+After long rainy afternoons an hour<br />
+Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings<br />
+Them at the windows in a radiant shower,<br />
+And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.<br />
+<br />
+Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep<br />
+By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;<br />
+And cradled in the branches, hidden deep<br />
+In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MEMORIES_OF_A_CHILDHOOD" id="MEMORIES_OF_A_CHILDHOOD"></a>MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD<br />
+<br />
+The darkness hung like richness in the room<br />
+When like a dream the mother entered there<br />
+And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air<br />
+Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.<br />
+<br />
+The room betrayed the mother&mdash;so she felt&mdash;<br />
+She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here?"<br />
+And with a gesture that he held most dear<br />
+Down for a moment by his side she knelt.<br />
+<br />
+Toward the piano they both shyly glanced<br />
+For she would sing to him on many a night,<br />
+And the child seated in the fading light<br />
+Would listen strangely as if half entranced,<br />
+<br />
+His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow<br />
+Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent<br />
+And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went<br />
+Moving as though against a drift of snow.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="DEATH" id="DEATH"></a>DEATH<br />
+<br />
+Before us great Death stands<br />
+Our fate held close within his quiet hands.<br />
+When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine<br />
+To drink deep of the mystic shining cup<br />
+And ecstasy through all our being leaps&mdash;<br />
+Death bows his head and weeps.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_ASHANTEE" id="THE_ASHANTEE"></a>THE ASHANTEE<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10%;">(Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)</span><br />
+<br />
+No vision of exotic southern countries,<br />
+No dancing women, supple, brown and tall<br />
+Whirling from out their falling draperies<br />
+To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;<br />
+<br />
+No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,<br />
+No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids<br />
+Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,<br />
+No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.<br />
+<br />
+Only mouths widening with a still broad smile<br />
+Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer<br />
+At white men, at their vanity and guile,<br />
+An understanding that fills one with fear.<br />
+<br />
+The beasts in cages much more loyal are,<br />
+Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,<br />
+Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,<br />
+Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.<br />
+<br />
+They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire<br />
+Consumed by longings over which they brood,<br />
+Oblivious of time, without desire,<br />
+Alone and lost in their great solitude.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="REMEMBRANCE" id="REMEMBRANCE"></a>REMEMBRANCE<br />
+<br />
+Expectant and waiting you muse<br />
+On the great rare thing which alone<br />
+To enhance your life you would choose:<br />
+The awakening of the stone,<br />
+The deeps where yourself you would lose.<br />
+<br />
+In the dusk of the shelves, embossed<br />
+Shine the volumes in gold and browns,<br />
+And you think of countries once crossed,<br />
+Of pictures, of shimmering gowns<br />
+Of the women that you have lost.<br />
+<br />
+And it comes to you then at last&mdash;<br />
+And you rise for you are aware<br />
+Of a year in the far off past<br />
+With its wonder and fear and prayer.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MUSIC" id="MUSIC"></a>MUSIC<br />
+<br />
+What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole<br />
+Like wandering steps, like a whisper&mdash;then mute;<br />
+What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul<br />
+Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.<br />
+<br />
+And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,<br />
+It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;<br />
+Your young life is strong, but how much more strong<br />
+Is the longing that through your music sighs.<br />
+<br />
+Let your flute be still and your soul float through<br />
+Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,<br />
+For here your song lived and it wisely grew<br />
+Before it was forced into melody.<br />
+<br />
+Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,<br />
+Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!<br />
+Now it no longer steals over my walls&mdash;<br />
+But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MAIDEN_MELANCHOLY" id="MAIDEN_MELANCHOLY"></a>MAIDEN MELANCHOLY<br />
+<br />
+A young knight comes into my mind<br />
+As from some myth of old.<br />
+<br />
+He came! You felt yourself entwined<br />
+As a great storm would round you wind.<br />
+He went! A blessing undefined<br />
+Seemed left, as when church-bells declined<br />
+And left you wrapt in prayer.<br />
+You fain would cry aloud&mdash;but bind<br />
+Your scarf about you and tear-blind<br />
+Weep softly in its fold.<br />
+<br />
+A young knight comes into my mind<br />
+Full armored forth to fare.<br />
+<br />
+His smile was luminously kind<br />
+Like glint of ivory enshrined,<br />
+Like a home longing undivined,<br />
+Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,<br />
+Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,<br />
+Like moonlight silver when combined<br />
+With a loved book's rare gold.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MAIDENS_AT_CONFIRMATION" id="MAIDENS_AT_CONFIRMATION"></a>MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(Paris in May, 1903)</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+The white veiled maids to confirmation go<br />
+Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;<br />
+Their childhood they are leaving now behind:<br />
+The future will be different, they know.<br />
+<br />
+Oh! Will it come? They wait&mdash;It must come soon!<br />
+The next long hour slowly strikes at last,<br />
+The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,<br />
+And sadly passes by the afternoon ...<br />
+<br />
+Like resurrection were the garments white<br />
+The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide<br />
+Into the church, as cool as silk inside,<br />
+With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:<br />
+The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare<br />
+To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.<br />
+<br />
+Then through the silence the great song rose high<br />
+Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,<br />
+Then luminously, gently down it poured&mdash;<br />
+Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.<br />
+<br />
+The wind through the white garments softly stirred<br />
+And they grew vari-coloured in each fold<br />
+And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold<br />
+And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,<br />
+And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold<br />
+Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.<br />
+<br />
+Outside the day was one of green and blue,<br />
+With touches of a luminous glowing red,<br />
+Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.<br />
+Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view<br />
+Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze<br />
+And singing sounded through the far off trees.<br />
+<br />
+It was as though garlands crowned everything<br />
+And all things were touched softly by the sun;<br />
+And many windows opened one by one<br />
+And the light trembled on them glistening.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_WOMAN_WHO_LOVES" id="THE_WOMAN_WHO_LOVES"></a>THE WOMAN WHO LOVES<br />
+<br />
+Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide<br />
+And lose myself&mdash;for to you I belong.<br />
+The hope that hitherto I have denied<br />
+Imperious comes to me as from your side<br />
+Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.<br />
+<br />
+Those times: the times when I was quite alone<br />
+By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,<br />
+My silence was the quiet of a stone<br />
+Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.<br />
+<br />
+But in these weeks of the awakening Spring<br />
+Something within me has been freed&mdash;something<br />
+That in the past dark years unconscious lay,<br />
+Which rises now within me and commands<br />
+And gives my poor warm life into your hands<br />
+Who know not what I was that Yesterday.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="PONT_DU_CARROUSEL" id="PONT_DU_CARROUSEL"></a>PONT DU CARROUSEL<br />
+<br />
+Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,<br />
+Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers<br />
+As though of nameless realms the boundary stone<br />
+About which circle distant starry hours.<br />
+<br />
+He seems the center around which stars glow<br />
+While all earth's ostentations surge below.<br />
+<br />
+Immovably and silently he stands<br />
+Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;<br />
+Past fathomless dark depths that he commands<br />
+A shallow generation drifting goes....<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="MADNESS" id="MADNESS"></a>MADNESS<br />
+<br />
+She thinks: I am&mdash;Have you not seen?<br />
+Who are you then, Marie?<br />
+I am a Queen, I am a Queen!<br />
+To your knee, to your knee!<br />
+<br />
+And then she weeps: I was&mdash;a child&mdash;<br />
+Who were you then, Marie?<br />
+Know you that I was no man's child,<br />
+Poor and in rags&mdash;said she.<br />
+<br />
+And then a Princess I became<br />
+To whom men bend their knees;<br />
+To princes things are not the same<br />
+As those a beggar sees.<br />
+<br />
+And those things which have made you great<br />
+Came to you, tell me, when?<br />
+One night, one night, one night quite late,<br />
+Things became different then.<br />
+<br />
+I walked the lane which presently<br />
+With strung chords seemed to bend;<br />
+Then Marie became Melody<br />
+And danced from end to end.<br />
+<br />
+The people watched with startled mien<br />
+And passed with frightened glance<br />
+For all know that only a Queen<br />
+May dance in the lanes: dance!...<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="LAMENT" id="LAMENT"></a>LAMENT<br />
+<br />
+Oh! All things are long passed away and far.<br />
+A light is shining but the distant star<br />
+From which it still comes to me has been dead<br />
+A thousand years ... In the dim phantom boat<br />
+That glided past some ghastly thing was said.<br />
+A clock just struck within some house remote.<br />
+Which house?&mdash;I long to still my beating heart.<br />
+Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray ...<br />
+Of all the stars there must be far away<br />
+A single star which still exists apart.<br />
+And I believe that I should know the one<br />
+Which has alone endured and which alone<br />
+Like a white City that all space commands<br />
+At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="SYMBOLS" id="SYMBOLS"></a>SYMBOLS<br />
+<br />
+From infinite longings finite deeds rise<br />
+As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,<br />
+But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend<br />
+And trembling from their lack of power descend&mdash;<br />
+So through the falling torrent of our fears<br />
+Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="caption"><a id="NEW_POEMS"></a>NEW POEMS</span>
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="EARLY_APOLLO" id="EARLY_APOLLO"></a>EARLY APOLLO<br />
+<br />
+As when at times there breaks through branches bare<br />
+A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,<br />
+About this poet-head a splendour rare<br />
+Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.<br />
+<br />
+There is as yet no shadow in his glance,<br />
+Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;<br />
+But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,<br />
+A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,<br />
+<br />
+And single petals one by one will fall<br />
+O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,<br />
+&mdash;The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile<br />
+As though a song were rising there the while.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_TOMB_OF_A_YOUNG_GIRL" id="THE_TOMB_OF_A_YOUNG_GIRL"></a>THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL<br />
+<br />
+We still remember! The same as of yore<br />
+All that has happened once again must be.<br />
+As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore&mdash;<br />
+It was like that&mdash;your light, small breasts you bore,<br />
+And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.<br />
+<br />
+That god&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">who was the wanderer, the slim</span><br />
+Despoiler of fair women; he&mdash;the wise,&mdash;<br />
+But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him<br />
+Who cast a shadow over your young limb<br />
+While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_POET" id="THE_POET"></a>THE POET<br />
+<br />
+You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,<br />
+Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;<br />
+Without you void would be my day and night,<br />
+Without you I'll not capture my great song.<br />
+<br />
+I have no earthly spot where I can live,<br />
+I have no love, I have no household fane,<br />
+And all the things to which myself I give<br />
+Impoverish me with richness they attain.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_PANTHER" id="THE_PANTHER"></a>THE PANTHER<br />
+<br />
+His weary glance, from passing by the bars,<br />
+Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;<br />
+It seems to him there are a thousand bars<br />
+And out beyond those bars the empty air.<br />
+<br />
+The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound<br />
+Of supple tread behind the iron bands,<br />
+Is like a dance of strength circling around,<br />
+While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.<br />
+<br />
+But there are times the pupils of his eyes<br />
+Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,<br />
+Tense with the flood of visions that arise<br />
+Only to sink and die within his heart.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="GROWING_BLIND" id="GROWING_BLIND"></a>GROWING BLIND<br />
+<br />
+Among all the others there sat a guest<br />
+Who sipped her tea as if one apart,<br />
+And she held her cup not quite like the rest;<br />
+Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.<br />
+<br />
+When the group of people arose at last<br />
+And laughed and talked in a merry tone,<br />
+As lingeringly through the rooms they passed<br />
+I saw that she followed alone.<br />
+<br />
+Tense and still like one who to sing must rise<br />
+Before a throng on a festal night<br />
+She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes<br />
+Were like pools which reflected light.<br />
+<br />
+She followed on slowly after the last<br />
+As though some object must be passed by,<br />
+And yet as if were it once but passed<br />
+She would no longer walk but fly.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_SPANISH_DANCER" id="THE_SPANISH_DANCER"></a>THE SPANISH DANCER<br />
+<br />
+As a lit match first flickers in the hands<br />
+Before it flames, and darts out from all sides<br />
+Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands<br />
+Of spectators&mdash;she, quivering, glowing stands<br />
+Poised tensely for the dance&mdash;then forward glides<br />
+<br />
+And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.<br />
+Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,<br />
+And with a daring art at her command<br />
+Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand<br />
+From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,<br />
+Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.<br />
+<br />
+And then, as though the fire fainter grows,<br />
+She gathers up the flame&mdash;again it glows,<br />
+As with proud gesture and imperious air<br />
+She flings it to the earth; and it lies there<br />
+Furiously flickering and crackling still&mdash;<br />
+Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet<br />
+Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will<br />
+And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="OFFERING" id="OFFERING"></a>OFFERING<br />
+<br />
+My body glows in every vein and blooms<br />
+To fullest flower since I first knew thee,<br />
+My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;<br />
+Who art thou then&mdash;thou who awaitest me?<br />
+<br />
+When from the past I draw myself the while<br />
+I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;<br />
+I only know the radiance of thy smile,<br />
+Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.<br />
+<br />
+Through childhood's years I wandered unaware<br />
+Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests<br />
+To offer thee, as on an altar fair<br />
+That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair<br />
+And wreathéd by the blossoms of thy breasts.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="LOVE_SONG" id="LOVE_SONG"></a>LOVE SONG<br />
+<br />
+When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!<br />
+How shall I tune it then to other things?<br />
+O! That some spot in darkness could be found<br />
+That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.<br />
+But everything that touches you and me<br />
+Welds us as played strings sound one melody.<br />
+Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?<br />
+And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?<br />
+O! Sweet song&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="ARCHAIC_TORSO_OF_APOLLO" id="ARCHAIC_TORSO_OF_APOLLO"></a>ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO<br />
+<br />
+We cannot fathom his mysterious head,<br />
+Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:<br />
+But from his torso gleaming light is shed<br />
+As from a candelabrum; inward bent<br />
+His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise<br />
+The round breast would not blind you with its grace,<br />
+Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs<br />
+Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.<br />
+Nor could this stark and stunted stone display<br />
+Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,<br />
+Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,<br />
+Nor break forth from its lines like a great star&mdash;<br />
+There is no spot that does not bind you fast<br />
+And transport you back, back to a far past.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="caption"><a id="THE_BOOK_OF_HOURS"></a>THE BOOK OF HOURS</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="The_Book_of_A_Monks_Life"></a><i>The Book of A Monk's Life</i><br />
+<br />
+<a id="I_live_my_life_in_circles"></a>I live my life in circles that grow wide<br />
+And endlessly unroll,<br />
+I may not reach the last, but on I glide<br />
+Strong pinioned toward my goal.<br />
+<br />
+About the old tower, dark against the sky,<br />
+The beat of my wings hums,<br />
+I circle about God, sweep far and high<br />
+On through milleniums.<br />
+<br />
+Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,<br />
+Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="Many_have_painted_her"></a>Many have painted her. But there was one<br />
+Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.<br />
+Mysteriously glowing through a background dim<br />
+When he was suffering she came to him,<br />
+And all the heavy pain within his heart<br />
+Rose in his hands and stole into his art.<br />
+His canvas is the beautiful bright veil<br />
+Through which her sorrow shines. There where the<br />
+Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn<br />
+A trembling smile softly begins to dawn ...<br />
+Though angels with seven candles light the place<br />
+You cannot read the secret of her face.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="In_cassocks_clad"></a>In cassocks clad I have had many brothers<br />
+In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,<br />
+They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers<br />
+And I dream of young Titians and of others<br />
+In which the God with shining radiance glows.<br />
+<br />
+But though my vigil constantly I keep<br />
+My God is dark&mdash;like woven texture flowing,<br />
+A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;<br />
+I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.<br />
+More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep<br />
+My branches only are swayed by the wind.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="Thou_Anxious_One"></a>Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear<br />
+Against thee all my surging senses sing?<br />
+About thy face in circles drawing near<br />
+My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.<br />
+<br />
+Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul<br />
+In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?<br />
+But when thy glance rests on me then my whole<br />
+Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.<br />
+<br />
+When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,<br />
+But when thou art awake I am thy Will<br />
+Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,<br />
+Expanding like far space star-lit and still<br />
+Into the distant mystic realm of Time.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="I_love_my_lifes_dark_hours"></a>I love my life's dark hours<br />
+In which my senses quicken and grow deep,<br />
+While, as from faint incense of faded flowers<br />
+Or letters old, I magically steep<br />
+Myself in days gone by: again I give<br />
+Myself unto the past:&mdash;again I live.<br />
+<br />
+Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,<br />
+Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...<br />
+<br />
+Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm<br />
+Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave<br />
+'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm&mdash;<br />
+And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,<br />
+Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,<br />
+Are lost once more in sadness and in song.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="The_Book_of_Pilgrimage"></a><i>The Book of Pilgrimage</i><br />
+<br />
+<a id="By_day_Thou_are_the_Legend_and_the_Dream"></a>By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream<br />
+That like a whisper floats about all men,<br />
+The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,<br />
+After the hour has struck, to close again.<br />
+<br />
+And when the day with drowsy gesture bends<br />
+And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,<br />
+As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends&mdash;<br />
+So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="All_those_who_seek_Thee"></a>All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,<br />
+And those who find would bind Thee<br />
+To gesture and to form.<br />
+<br />
+But I would comprehend Thee<br />
+As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.<br />
+Thou growest with my maturity,<br />
+Thou Art in calm and storm.<br />
+<br />
+I ask of Thee no vanity<br />
+To evidence and prove Thee.<br />
+Thou Wert in eons old.<br />
+<br />
+Perform no miracles for me,<br />
+But justify Thy laws to me<br />
+Which, as the years pass by me.<br />
+All soundlessly unfold.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="In_a_house_was_one"></a>In a house was one who arose from the feast<br />
+And went forth to wander in distant lands,<br />
+Because there was somewhere far off in the East<br />
+A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.<br />
+And ever his children, when breaking their bread,<br />
+Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.<br />
+<br />
+In another house was the one who had died,<br />
+Who still sat at table and drank from the glass<br />
+And ever within the walls did abide&mdash;<br />
+For out of the house he could no more pass.<br />
+And his children set forth to seek for the spot<br />
+Where stands the great Church which he forgot.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="Extinguish_my_eyes"></a>Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,<br />
+Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,<br />
+And without feet I still can follow you,<br />
+And without voice I still can to you call.<br />
+Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,<br />
+Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.<br />
+Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you<br />
+As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand&mdash;<br />
+And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood<br />
+Through all the singing currents of my blood.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="In_the_deep_nights"></a>In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!<br />
+To seek you over the wide world I roam,<br />
+For all abundance is but meager measure<br />
+Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.<br />
+<br />
+Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,<br />
+Few follow it, the way is long and steep.<br />
+You dwell in solitude&mdash;Oh, does your glowing<br />
+Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?<br />
+<br />
+My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,<br />
+Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air<br />
+To find you before day to night has drifted;<br />
+I reach out into space to seek you there ...<br />
+<br />
+Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,<br />
+Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,<br />
+You come, and over earth a magic vesture<br />
+Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="The_Book_of_Poverty_and_Death"></a><i>The Book of Poverty and Death</i><br />
+<br />
+<a id="Her_mouth"></a>Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust<br />
+That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,<br />
+But that had once from Life received all this<br />
+Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must<br />
+From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,<br />
+A thing apart, a parable in stone.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="Alone_Thou_wanderest"></a>Alone Thou wanderest through space,<br />
+Profound One with the hidden face;<br />
+Thou art Poverty's great rose,<br />
+The eternal metamorphose<br />
+Of gold into the light of sun.<br />
+<br />
+Thou art the mystic homeless One;<br />
+Into the world Thou never came,<br />
+Too mighty Thou, too great to name;<br />
+Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,<br />
+Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a id="A_watcher_of_Thy_spaces"></a>A watcher of Thy spaces make me,<br />
+Make me a listener at Thy stone,<br />
+Give to me vision and then wake me<br />
+Upon Thy oceans all alone.<br />
+Thy rivers' courses let me follow<br />
+Where they leap the crags in their flight<br />
+And where at dusk in caverns hollow<br />
+They croon to music of the night.<br />
+Send me far into Thy barren land<br />
+Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,<br />
+Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand&mdash;<br />
+August symbols of unlived lives.<br />
+There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,<br />
+And behind them a blind man goes:<br />
+With him I will walk till day is done<br />
+Up the pathway that no one knows ...<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poems
+
+Author: Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+Translator: Jessie Lemont
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2012 [EBook #38594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
+http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
+available by the Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+by
+
+RANIER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+Translated by Jessie Lamont
+
+With an Introduction by H.T.
+
+
+New York
+
+Tobias A. Wright
+
+1918
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+
+AUGUSTE RODIN
+
+THROUGH WHOM I CAME TO KNOW
+
+RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+POEMS OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Acknowledgment
+
+To the Editors of Poetry--A magazine of Verse, and Poet Lore, the
+translator is indebted for permission to reprint certain poems in this
+book--also to the compilers of the following anthologies--Amphora II
+edited by Thomas Bird Mosher--The Catholic Anthology of World Poetry
+selected by Carl van Doren.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_Introduction:_
+  The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
+
+_First Poems:_
+  Evening
+  Mary Virgin
+
+_The Book of Pictures:_
+  Presaging
+  Autumn
+  Silent Hour
+  The Angels
+  Solitude
+  Kings in Legends
+  The Knight
+  The Boy
+  Initiation
+  The Neighbour
+  Song of the Statue
+  Maidens I
+  Maidens II
+  The Bride
+  Autumnal Day
+  Moonlight Night
+  In April
+  Memories of a Childhood
+  Death
+  The Ashantee
+  Remembrance
+  Music
+  Maiden Melancholy
+  Maidens at Confirmation
+  The Woman who Loves
+  Pont du Carrousel
+  Madness
+  Lament
+  Symbols
+
+_New Poems:_
+  Early Apollo
+  The Tomb of a Young Girl
+  The Poet
+  The Panther
+  Growing Blind
+  The Spanish Dancer
+  Offering
+  Love Song
+  Archaic Torso of Apollo
+
+_The Book of Hours:_
+
+  _The Book of a Monk's Life_
+    I Live my Life in Circles
+    Many have Painted Her
+    In Cassocks Clad
+    Thou Anxious One
+    I Love My Life's Dark Hours
+
+  _The Book of Pilgrimage_
+    By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream
+    All Those Who Seek Thee
+    In a House Was One
+    Extinguish My Eyes
+    In the Deep Nights
+
+  _The Book of Poverty and Death_
+    Her Mouth
+    Alone Thou Wanderest
+    A Watcher of Thy Spaces
+
+
+
+
+THE POETRY OF RAINER MARIA RILKE
+
+    [Greek: eisi gar oun, oi en tas phuchais kuousin]
+
+                                     Plato
+
+The supreme problem of every age is that of finding its consummate
+artistic expression. Before this problem every other remains of
+secondary importance. History defines and directs its physical course,
+science cooperates in the achievement of its material aims, but Art
+alone gives to the age its spiritual physiognomy, its ultimate and
+lasting expression.
+
+The process of Art is on the one hand sensuous, the conception having
+for its basis the fineness of organization of the senses; and on the
+other hand it is severely scientific, the value of the creation being
+dependent upon the craftsmanship, the mastery over the tool, the
+technique.
+
+Art, like Nature, its great and only reservoir for all time past and all
+time to come, ever strives for elimination and selection. It is severe
+and aristocratic in the application of its laws and impervious to appeal
+to serve other than its own aims. Its purpose is the symbolization of
+Life. In its sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment,
+the serene, final, and imperturbable solitude which is the ultimate
+criterion of all great things created.
+
+To speak of Poetry is to speak of the most subtle, the most delicate,
+and the most accurate instrument by which to measure Life.
+
+Poetry is reality's essence visioned and made manifest by one endowed
+with a perception acutely sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and
+gifted with a power to shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the
+reaction to Life's phenomena. The poet moulds that which appears
+evanescent and ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values.
+In this act of creation he serves eternity.
+
+Poetry, in especial lyrical poetry, must be acknowledged the supreme
+art, culminating as it does in a union of the other arts, the musical,
+the plastic, and the pictorial.
+
+The most eminent contemporary poets of Europe have, each in accordance
+with his individual temperament, reflected in their work the spiritual
+essence of our age, its fears and failures, its hopes and high
+achievements: Maeterlinck, with his mood of resignation and his
+retirement into a dusky twilight where his shadowy figures move
+noiselessly like phantoms in fate-laden dimness; Dehmel, the worshipper
+of will, with his passion for materiality and the beauty of all things
+physical and tangible; Verhaeren, the visionary of a new vitality, who
+sees in the toilers of fields and factories the heroic gesture of our
+time and who might have written its great epic of industry but for the
+overwhelming lyrical mood of his soul.
+
+Until a few years ago, known only to a relatively small community on the
+continent but commanding an ever increasing attention which has borne
+his name far beyond the boundary of his country, the personality of
+Rainer Maria Rilke stands to-day beside the most illustrious poets of
+modern Europe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The background against which the figure of Rainer Maria Rilke is
+silhouetted is so varied, the influences which have entered into his
+life are so manifold, that a study of his work, however slight, must
+needs take into consideration the elements through which this poet has
+matured into a great master.
+
+Prague, the city in which Rilke was born in 1875, with its sinister
+palaces and crumbling towers that rose in the early Middle Ages and have
+reached out into our time like the threatening fingers of mighty hands
+which have wielded swords for generations and which are stained with the
+blood of many wounds of many races; the city where amid grey old ruins
+blonde maidens are at play or are lost in reverie in the green cool
+parks and shady gardens with which the Bohemian capital abounds, this
+Prague of mingled grotesqueness and beauty gave to the young boy his
+first impressions.
+
+There is a period in the life of every artist when his whole being seems
+lost in a contemplation of the surrounding world, when the application
+to work is difficult, like the violent forcing of something that is
+awaiting its time. This is the time of his dream, as sacred as the days
+of early spring before wind and rain and light have touched the fruits
+of the fields, when there is a tense bleak silence over the whole of
+nature, in which is wrapped the strength of storms and the glow of the
+summer's sun. This is the time of his deepest dream, and upon this dream
+and its guarding depends the final realization of his life's work.
+
+The young graduate of the Gymnasium was to enter upon the career of an
+army officer in accordance with the traditions of the family, an old
+noble house which traces its lineage far back to Carinthian ancestry.
+His inclinations, however, pointed so decisively in the direction of the
+finer arts of life that he left the Military Academy after a very short
+attendance to devote himself to the study of philosophy and the history
+of art.
+
+As one turns the pages of Rilke's first small book of poems, published
+originally under the title _Larenopfer_, in the year 1895, and which
+appeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name _Erste
+Gedichte_, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in the
+presentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovingly
+over the dream of his boyhood. As the title indicates, these poems are a
+tribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town.
+Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme of
+almost every one of these poems. The meadows, the maidens, the dark
+river in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising like
+grey mists are seen with a wonderment, the great well-spring of all
+poetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through all these
+poems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude for
+the ability to thus vision the world, to be sunk in the music of all
+things. "Without is everything that I feel within myself, and without
+and within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable."
+
+These pictures of town and landscape are never separated from their
+personal relation to the poet. He feels too keenly his dependence upon
+them, as a child views flowers and stars as personal possessions. Not
+until later was he to reach the height of an impersonal objectivity in
+his art. What distinguishes these early poems from similar adolescent
+productions is the restraint in the presentation, the economy and
+intensity of expression and that quality of listening to the inner voice
+of things which renders the poet the seer of mankind.
+
+The second book of poems appeared two years later and like the first
+volume _Traumgekroent_ is full of the music that is reminiscent of the
+mild melancholy of the Bohemian folk-songs, in whose gentle rhythms the
+barbaric strength of the race seems to be lulled to rest as the waves of
+a far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. The themes of
+_Traumgekroent_ are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environment
+of Prague and some of the most beautiful poems are luminous pictures of
+villages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June, out of which
+rises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing.
+In these first two volumes the poet is satisfied with painting in words,
+full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world. From this period dates
+the small poem _Evening_, which seems to have been sketched by a
+Japanese painter, so clear and colourful is its texture, so precious and
+precise are its outlines.
+
+With _Advent_ and _Mir Zur Feier_, both published within the following
+three years, a phase of questioning commences, a dim desire begins to
+stir to reach out into the larger world "deep into life, out beyond
+time." Whereas the early poems were characterized by a tendency to turn
+away from the turmoil of life--in fact, the concrete world of reality
+does not seem to exist--there is noticeable in these two later volumes
+an advance toward life in the sense that the poet is beginning to
+approach and to vision some of its greatest symbols.
+
+Throughout the entire work of Rilke, in his poetry as well as in his
+interpretations of painting and sculpture, there are two elements that
+constitute the cornerstones in the structure of his art. If, as has been
+said with a degree of verity, Nietzsche was primarily a musician whose
+philosophy had for its basis and took its ultimate aspects from the
+musical quality of his artistic endowment, it may be maintained with an
+equal amount of truth that Rilke is primarily a painter and sculptor
+whose poetry rests upon the fundaments of the pictorial and plastic
+arts.
+
+Up to the time of the publication of these volumes, Rilke's poems
+possessed a quietude, a stillness suggested in the straight unbroken yet
+delicate lines of the picture which he portrays and in the soft, almost
+unpulsating rhythm of his words. The approach of evening or nightfall,
+the coming of dawn, the change of the seasons, the slow changes of light
+into darkness and of darkness into light, in short, the most silent yet
+greatest metamorphoses in the external aspects of nature form the
+contents of many of these first poems. The inanimate object and the
+living creature in nature are not seen in the sharp contours of their
+isolation; they are viewed and interpreted in the atmosphere that
+surrounds them, in which they are enwrapped and so densely veiled that
+the outlines are only dimly visible, be that atmosphere the mystic grey
+of northern twilight or the dark velvety blue of southern summer nights.
+In _Advent_, the experience of the atmosphere becomes an experience in
+his innermost soul and, therefore, all things become of value to him
+only in so far as they partake of the atmosphere, as they are seen in a
+peculiar air and distance. This first phase in Rilke's work may be
+defined as the phase of reposeful nature.
+
+To this sphere of relaxation and restfulness in which the objects are
+static and are changed only as the surrounding atmosphere affects them,
+the second phase in the poet's development adds another element, which
+later was to grow into dimensions so powerful, so violently breaking
+beyond the limitations of simple expression in words that it could only
+find its satisfaction in a dithyrambic hymn to the work of the great
+plastic artist of our time, to the creations of Auguste Rodin. This
+second element is that which the French sculptor in a different medium
+has carried to perfection. It is the element of gesture, of dramatic
+movement.
+
+This might seem the appropriate place in which to speak of Rilke's
+monograph on the art of Rodin. To do so would, however, be an undue
+anticipation, for it will be necessary to trace Rilke's development
+through several transitions before the value of his contact with the
+work of Rodin can be fully measured.
+
+The gesture, the movement begins in _Advent_ and _Celebration_ to
+disturb the stillness prevailing in the first two volumes of poems. Even
+here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of
+wind over a quiet sea; and gentle beings make this first gesture,
+children and young women at play, singing, dancing or at prayer.
+
+Particularly in the cycle _Songs of the Maidens_ in the book
+_Celebration_, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic
+background of the landscape against which the gesture of longing or
+expectation is seen and felt. It is the impatience to burst into
+blossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these _Songs of the
+Maidens_ with the tenseness of suspense. _The Prayers of the Maidens to
+Mary_ have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with the
+ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly
+Virgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love and
+motherhood. This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued and
+is only heard like the cadence of a far off dream:
+
+    "How shall I go on tiptoe
+     From childhood to Annunciation
+     Through the dim twilight
+     Into Thy Garden?"
+
+Mention should be made of some prose writings which Rilke published in
+the year 1898 and shortly afterward. They are _Two Stories of Prague_,
+_The Touch of Life_ and _The Last_; three volumes of short stories; a
+two-act drama, _The Daily Life_, points to a strong Maeterlinck
+influence, and finally _Stories of God_. With both beauty of detail and
+problematic interest, the short stories show an incoherence of treatment
+and a lack of dramatic co-ordination easily conceivable in a poet who is
+essentially lyrical and who at that time had not mastered the means of
+technique to give to his characters the clear chiselling of the epic
+form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A sojourn in Russia and especially the acquaintance with the novels of
+Dostoievsky became potent factors in Rilke's development and served to
+deepen creations which without this influence might have terminated in a
+grandiose aesthesia.
+
+Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as
+springing from an ethical impulse and as having for their motive power
+and _raison d'etre_ the tendency toward socio-political reform, in
+contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose
+motives and aims are primarily of an aesthetic nature and seek in art the
+reconciliation of the dualism between spirit and matter.
+
+Dostoievsky, whom Merejkovsky describes somewhere as the man with the
+never-young face, the face "with its shadows of suffering and its
+wrinkles of sunken-in cheeks ... but that which gives to this face its
+most tortured expression is its seeming immobility, the suddenly
+interrupted impulse, the life hardened into a stone:" this Dostoievsky
+and particularly his _Rodion Raskolnikov_ cycle became a profound
+artistic experience to Rilke. The poor, the outcasts, the homeless ones
+received for him a new significance, the significance of the isolated
+figure placed in the mighty everchanging current of a life in which this
+figure stands strong and solitary. In the poem entitled _Pont Du
+Carrousel_, written in Paris a few years later, Rilke has visioned the
+blind beggar aloof amid the fluctuating crowds of the metropolis.
+
+Of Russia and its influence upon him, Rilke writes: "Russia became for
+me the reality and the deep daily realization that reality is something
+that comes infinitely slowly to those who have patience. Russia is the
+country where men are solitary, each one with a world within himself,
+each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating
+himself, and because of that truly pious. Here the words of men are only
+fragile bridges above their real life."
+
+The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
+art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
+selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
+1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
+as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
+Advent:
+
+    "That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
+     To have no home in the present.
+     And these are wishes: gentle dialogues
+     Of the poor hours with eternity."
+
+With _Das Buch der Bilder_ the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
+lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
+our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
+depths of myth _The Kings in Legends_, or whether we read from _The
+Chronicle of a Monk_ the awe-inspiring description of _The Last Judgment
+Day_, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see _The Maidens at
+Confirmation_, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
+finality of the typical.
+
+It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
+Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer." Hauptmann,
+like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
+his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
+thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
+reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
+social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
+might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
+the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
+an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
+_The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding
+Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical
+gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
+they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this
+concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
+expression:
+
+    "Kings in old legends seem
+     Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+     They blind all with their gleam,
+     Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+     Their robes are edged with bands
+     Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+     With richly jeweled hands
+     They hold their slender, shining, naked swords."
+
+There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to
+concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
+lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like
+"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
+aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
+the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
+in all nature.
+
+In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
+weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
+the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
+forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
+within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
+understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das
+Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
+these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
+prayer of reconciliation and triumph.
+
+_The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in
+the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of
+Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although
+the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book
+of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
+this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book
+of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends
+reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
+by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
+force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning
+with the lines:
+
+    "I live my life in circles that grow wide
+     And endlessly unroll."
+
+Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
+magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
+in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
+him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.
+
+There are poems in _The Book of Pilgrimage_ of the stillness of a
+whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
+their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
+book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
+withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
+the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
+silent world:
+
+    "By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream
+     That like a whisper floats about all men,
+     The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+     After the hour has struck, to close again.
+     And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+     And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+     As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends
+     So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise."
+
+The last part of _The Book of Hours_, _The Book of Poverty and Death_,
+is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
+the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
+demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
+the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
+nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
+and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
+development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
+negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
+positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
+or created in the domain of art.
+
+In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
+because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
+forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
+inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
+profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
+strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
+The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
+significance of Rilke's _Book of Hours_. A distinguished Scandinavian
+writer has pronounced _Das Stunden-Buch_ one of the supreme literary
+achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
+prayer.
+
+In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
+high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
+into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: _The Sketch of Malte
+Laurids Brigge_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In _New Poems_ (1907) and _New Poems, Second Part_ (1908) the historical
+figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
+proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
+the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
+human destiny. _Abishag_ presents the contrast between the dawning and
+the fading life; _David Singing Before Saul_ shows the impatience of
+awakening ambition, and _Joshua_ is the man who forces even God to do
+his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
+poems _Eranna to Sappho_, _Lament for Antinous_, _Early Apollo_ and the
+_Archaic Torso of Apollo_.
+
+The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
+superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
+important among which are _The Cathedral_, _God in the Middle Ages_,
+_Saint Sebastian_ personifying martyrdom, and _The Rose Window_, whose
+glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
+Modern Paris is often the background of the _New Poems_, and the crass
+play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
+the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
+flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
+warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.
+
+Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
+images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
+technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of _The Book of
+Pictures_ is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
+and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
+convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
+all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these _New Poems_ are not
+quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
+Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
+_The Spanish Dancer_, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
+vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
+momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
+art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
+grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many of the themes in the _New Poems_ bear testimony to the fact that
+Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
+Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
+at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
+entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
+of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
+landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
+landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
+melancholy beauty entered into his own work.
+
+More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
+of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
+his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
+life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The _New Poems_
+bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
+twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
+of a friend and that of an artist.
+
+One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
+features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
+white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
+moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
+the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
+time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
+slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
+on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
+mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
+of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
+listening to some distant music.
+
+From no other book of his, not excepting _The Book of Hours_, can we
+deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
+we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.
+
+Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
+"power of servitude in all nature." For this reason the book on Rodin is
+far more than a purely aesthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
+traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
+itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
+deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
+religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
+begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
+became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
+summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name." And
+he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
+has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
+was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
+significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
+in just this renunciation lay his triumph--for Life entered into his
+work."
+
+Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
+creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
+remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
+consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
+mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
+visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
+and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
+
+H.T.
+
+NEW YORK CITY,
+AUTUMN, 1918.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST POEMS
+
+
+
+    EVENING
+
+
+    The bleak fields are asleep,
+    My heart alone wakes;
+    The evening in the harbour
+    Down his red sails takes.
+
+    Night, guardian of dreams,
+    Now wanders through the land;
+    The moon, a lily white,
+    Blossoms within her hand.
+
+
+
+
+    MARY VIRGIN
+
+
+    How came, how came from out thy night
+    Mary, so much light
+    And so much gloom:
+    Who was thy bridegroom?
+
+    Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot
+    That thou the same art not
+    Who came to me
+    In thy Virginity.
+
+    I am still so blossoming, so young.
+    How shall I go on tiptoe
+    From childhood to Annunciation
+    Through the dim twilight
+    Into thy Garden.
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF PICTURES
+
+
+
+    PRESAGING
+
+
+    I am like a flag unfurled in space,
+    I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,
+    While the things beneath are not yet stirring,
+    While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys
+    And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--
+    Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea
+    And expand and withdraw into myself
+    And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMN
+
+
+    The leaves fall, fall as from far,
+    Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
+    They fall with slow and lingering descent.
+
+    And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
+    From out the stars into the Solitude.
+
+    Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
+    And lo! the other one:--it is the law.
+    But there is One who holds this falling
+    Infinitely softly in His hands.
+
+
+
+
+    SILENT HOUR
+
+
+    Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
+    Weeps without cause in the world
+    Weeps over me.
+
+    Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
+    Laughs without cause in the night
+    Laughs at me.
+
+    Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
+    Wanders in vain in the world
+    Wanders to me.
+
+    Whoever dies somewhere in the world
+    Dies without cause in the world
+    Looks at me.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ANGELS
+
+
+    They all have tired mouths
+    And luminous, illimitable souls;
+    And a longing (as if for sin)
+    Trembles at times through their dreams.
+
+    They all resemble one another,
+    In God's garden they are silent
+    Like many, many intervals
+    In His mighty melody.
+
+    But when they spread their wings
+    They awaken the winds
+    That stir as though God
+    With His far-reaching master hands
+    Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
+
+
+
+
+    SOLITUDE
+
+
+    Solitude is like a rain
+    That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
+    It floats remote across the far-off plain
+    Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
+    Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
+    Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
+    When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
+    When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
+    Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
+    When men with quiet hatred burning deep
+    Together in a common bed must sleep--
+    Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
+    Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan ...
+
+
+
+
+    KINGS IN LEGENDS
+
+
+    Kings in old legends seem
+    Like mountains rising in the evening light.
+    They blind all with their gleam,
+    Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
+    Their robes are edged with bands
+    Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
+    With richly jeweled hands
+    They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
+
+
+
+
+    THE KNIGHT
+
+
+    The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
+    Into the roar of the world.
+    And here is Life: the vines in the vale
+    And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
+    And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
+    God's flags afloat on every wall
+    In a thousand streets unfurled.
+
+    Beneath the armour of the Knight
+    Behind the chain's black links
+    Death crouches and thinks and thinks:
+    "When will the sword's blade sharp and bright
+    Forth from the scabbard spring
+    And cut the network of the cloak
+    Enmeshing me ring on ring--
+    When will the foe's delivering stroke
+    Set me free
+    To dance
+    And sing?"
+
+
+
+
+    THE BOY
+
+
+    I wish I might become like one of these
+    Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
+    With torches flaming out like loosened hair
+    On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.
+    I wish to stand as on a boat and dare
+    The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
+    In darkness but with helmet made of gold
+    That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,
+    Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
+    With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,
+    Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.
+    One stands by me and blows a blast apace
+    On his great flashing trumpet and the sound
+    Shrieks through the vast black solitude around
+    Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.
+    The houses fall behind us on their knees,
+    Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
+    The great squares yieled to us and them we seize--
+    And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.
+
+
+
+
+    INITIATION
+
+
+    Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,
+    Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,
+    And far in the dim distance leave thy home,
+    Whosoever thou art.
+    Lift thine eyes which lingering see
+    The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
+    Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree
+    That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,
+    And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise
+    Like words that in the silence clearer grow;
+    As they unfold before thy will to know
+    Gently withdraw thine eyes--
+
+
+
+
+    THE NEIGHBOUR
+
+
+    Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?
+    In many foreign cities, far away,
+    Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.
+    Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?
+
+    Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed
+    Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,
+
+    Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?
+    Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?
+    Why am I the neighbour always
+    Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?
+    Life is more heavy--thy song says--
+    Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.
+
+
+
+
+    SONG OF THE STATUE
+
+
+    Who so loveth me that he
+    Will give his precious life for me?
+    I shall be set free from the stone
+    If some one drowns for me in the sea,
+    I shall have life, life of my own,--
+    For life I ache.
+
+    I long for the singing blood,
+    The stone is so still and cold.
+    I dream of life, life is good.
+    Will no one love me and be bold
+    And me awake?
+
+    -------------------------------
+
+    I weep and weep alone,
+    Weep always for my stone.
+    What joy is my blood to me
+    If it ripens like red wine?
+    It cannot call back from the sea
+    The life that was given for mine,
+    Given for Love's sake.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. I
+
+
+    Others must by a long dark way
+    Stray to the mystic bards,
+    Or ask some one who has heard them sing
+    Or touch the magic chords.
+    Only the maidens question not
+    The bridges that lead to Dream;
+    Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls
+    On a silver vase agleam.
+
+    The maidens' doors of Life lead out
+    Where the song of the poet soars,
+    And out beyond to the great world--
+    To the world beyond the doors.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS. II
+
+
+    Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
+    How solitary and remote you are,
+    As night is lighted by one high bright star
+    They draw light from the distance where you dwell.
+
+    For poet you must always maiden be
+    Even though his eyes the woman in you wake
+    Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,
+    Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.
+
+    Within his garden let him wait alone
+    Where benches stand expectant in the shade
+    Within the chamber where the lyre was played
+    Where he received you as the eternal One.
+
+    Go! It grows dark--your voice and form no more
+    His senses seek; he now no longer sees
+    A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
+    Along the pathway where it gleamed before.
+
+    He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
+    And he loves much the silent chamber where
+    Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
+    He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.
+
+    The softly stealing echo comes again
+    From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;
+    And many see you there--so his thought runs--
+    And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE BRIDE
+
+
+    Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!
+    Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;
+    The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps
+    Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
+
+    O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,
+    Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
+    Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
+    I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out ...
+
+
+
+
+    AUTUMNAL DAY
+
+
+    Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
+    Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
+    And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.
+
+    Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
+    Give to them two more burning days and press
+    The last sweetness into the heavy wine.
+
+    He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
+    Who is alone will now remain alone;
+    He will awake, will read, will letters write
+    Through the long day and in the lonely night;
+    And restless, solitary, he will rove
+    Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.
+
+
+
+
+    MOONLIGHT NIGHT
+
+
+    South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above
+    Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.
+    From the old tower the hours fall heavily
+    Into the dark as though into the sea--
+    A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,
+    Then for a while void silence fills the air;
+    And then a violin (from God knows where)
+    Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love ... Oh Love ...
+
+
+
+
+    IN APRIL
+
+
+    Again the woods are odorous, the lark
+    Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
+    That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
+    Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
+
+    After long rainy afternoons an hour
+    Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
+    Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
+    And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
+
+    Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
+    By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
+    And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
+    In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
+
+
+
+
+    MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
+
+
+    The darkness hung like richness in the room
+    When like a dream the mother entered there
+    And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air
+    Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.
+
+    The room betrayed the mother--so she felt--
+    She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here?"
+    And with a gesture that he held most dear
+    Down for a moment by his side she knelt.
+
+    Toward the piano they both shyly glanced
+    For she would sing to him on many a night,
+    And the child seated in the fading light
+    Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
+
+    His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow
+    Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent
+    And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
+    Moving as though against a drift of snow.
+
+
+
+
+   DEATH
+
+
+   Before us great Death stands
+   Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
+   When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine
+   To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
+   And ecstasy through all our being leaps--
+   Death bows his head and weeps.
+
+
+
+
+    THE ASHANTEE
+                    (Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
+
+
+    No vision of exotic southern countries,
+    No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
+    Whirling from out their falling draperies
+    To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;
+
+    No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,
+    No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids
+    Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,
+    No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.
+
+    Only mouths widening with a still broad smile
+    Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
+    At white men, at their vanity and guile,
+    An understanding that fills one with fear.
+
+    The beasts in cages much more loyal are,
+    Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,
+    Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
+    Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.
+
+    They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
+    Consumed by longings over which they brood,
+    Oblivious of time, without desire,
+    Alone and lost in their great solitude.
+
+
+
+
+    REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+    Expectant and waiting you muse
+    On the great rare thing which alone
+    To enhance your life you would choose:
+    The awakening of the stone,
+    The deeps where yourself you would lose.
+
+    In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
+    Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
+    And you think of countries once crossed,
+    Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
+    Of the women that you have lost.
+
+    And it comes to you then at last--
+    And you rise for you are aware
+    Of a year in the far off past
+    With its wonder and fear and prayer.
+
+
+
+
+    MUSIC
+
+
+    What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole
+    Like wandering steps, like a whisper--then mute;
+    What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul
+    Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
+
+    And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,
+    It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;
+    Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
+    Is the longing that through your music sighs.
+
+    Let your flute be still and your soul float through
+    Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,
+    For here your song lived and it wisely grew
+    Before it was forced into melody.
+
+    Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,
+    Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!
+    Now it no longer steals over my walls--
+    But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDEN MELANCHOLY
+
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    As from some myth of old.
+
+    He came! You felt yourself entwined
+    As a great storm would round you wind.
+    He went! A blessing undefined
+    Seemed left, as when church-bells declined
+    And left you wrapt in prayer.
+    You fain would cry aloud--but bind
+    Your scarf about you and tear-blind
+    Weep softly in its fold.
+
+    A young knight comes into my mind
+    Full armored forth to fare.
+
+    His smile was luminously kind
+    Like glint of ivory enshrined,
+    Like a home longing undivined,
+    Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,
+    Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,
+    Like moonlight silver when combined
+    With a loved book's rare gold.
+
+
+
+
+    MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION
+
+                    (Paris in May, 1903)
+
+
+    The white veiled maids to confirmation go
+    Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;
+    Their childhood they are leaving now behind:
+    The future will be different, they know.
+
+    Oh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!
+    The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
+    The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,
+    And sadly passes by the afternoon ...
+
+    Like resurrection were the garments white
+    The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide
+    Into the church, as cool as silk inside,
+    With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:
+    The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
+    To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.
+
+    Then through the silence the great song rose high
+    Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
+    Then luminously, gently down it poured--
+    Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.
+
+    The wind through the white garments softly stirred
+    And they grew vari-coloured in each fold
+    And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold
+    And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,
+    And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold
+    Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.
+
+    Outside the day was one of green and blue,
+    With touches of a luminous glowing red,
+    Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
+    Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
+    Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
+    And singing sounded through the far off trees.
+
+    It was as though garlands crowned everything
+    And all things were touched softly by the sun;
+    And many windows opened one by one
+    And the light trembled on them glistening.
+
+
+
+
+    THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
+
+
+    Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
+    And lose myself--for to you I belong.
+    The hope that hitherto I have denied
+    Imperious comes to me as from your side
+    Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
+
+    Those times: the times when I was quite alone
+    By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
+    My silence was the quiet of a stone
+    Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.
+
+    But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
+    Something within me has been freed--something
+    That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
+    Which rises now within me and commands
+    And gives my poor warm life into your hands
+    Who know not what I was that Yesterday.
+
+
+
+
+    PONT DU CARROUSEL
+
+
+    Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
+    Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers
+    As though of nameless realms the boundary stone
+    About which circle distant starry hours.
+
+    He seems the center around which stars glow
+    While all earth's ostentations surge below.
+
+    Immovably and silently he stands
+    Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;
+    Past fathomless dark depths that he commands
+    A shallow generation drifting goes....
+
+
+
+
+    MADNESS
+
+
+    She thinks: I am--Have you not seen?
+    Who are you then, Marie?
+    I am a Queen, I am a Queen!
+    To your knee, to your knee!
+
+    And then she weeps: I was--a child--
+    Who were you then, Marie?
+    Know you that I was no man's child,
+    Poor and in rags--said she.
+
+    And then a Princess I became
+    To whom men bend their knees;
+    To princes things are not the same
+    As those a beggar sees.
+
+    And those things which have made you great
+    Came to you, tell me, when?
+    One night, one night, one night quite late,
+    Things became different then.
+
+    I walked the lane which presently
+    With strung chords seemed to bend;
+    Then Marie became Melody
+    And danced from end to end.
+
+    The people watched with startled mien
+    And passed with frightened glance
+    For all know that only a Queen
+    May dance in the lanes: dance!...
+
+
+
+
+    LAMENT
+
+
+    Oh! All things are long passed away and far.
+    A light is shining but the distant star
+    From which it still comes to me has been dead
+    A thousand years ... In the dim phantom boat
+    That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
+    A clock just struck within some house remote.
+    Which house?--I long to still my beating heart.
+    Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray ...
+    Of all the stars there must be far away
+    A single star which still exists apart.
+    And I believe that I should know the one
+    Which has alone endured and which alone
+    Like a white City that all space commands
+    At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.
+
+
+
+
+     SYMBOLS
+
+
+     From infinite longings finite deeds rise
+     As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
+     But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
+     And trembling from their lack of power descend--
+     So through the falling torrent of our fears
+     Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
+
+
+
+
+NEW POEMS
+
+
+
+
+    EARLY APOLLO
+
+
+    As when at times there breaks through branches bare
+    A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,
+    About this poet-head a splendour rare
+    Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.
+
+    There is as yet no shadow in his glance,
+    Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;
+    But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,
+    A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
+
+    And single petals one by one will fall
+    O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
+    --The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile
+    As though a song were rising there the while.
+
+
+
+
+    THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
+
+
+    We still remember! The same as of yore
+    All that has happened once again must be.
+    As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--
+    It was like that--your light, small breasts you bore,
+    And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.
+
+    That god--
+              who was the wanderer, the slim
+    Despoiler of fair women; he--the wise,--
+    But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
+    Who cast a shadow over your young limb
+    While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.
+
+
+
+
+    THE POET
+
+
+    You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,
+    Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;
+    Without you void would be my day and night,
+    Without you I'll not capture my great song.
+
+    I have no earthly spot where I can live,
+    I have no love, I have no household fane,
+    And all the things to which myself I give
+    Impoverish me with richness they attain.
+
+
+
+
+    THE PANTHER
+
+
+    His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
+    Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
+    It seems to him there are a thousand bars
+    And out beyond those bars the empty air.
+
+    The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
+    Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
+    Is like a dance of strength circling around,
+    While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
+
+    But there are times the pupils of his eyes
+    Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
+    Tense with the flood of visions that arise
+    Only to sink and die within his heart.
+
+
+
+
+    GROWING BLIND
+
+
+    Among all the others there sat a guest
+    Who sipped her tea as if one apart,
+    And she held her cup not quite like the rest;
+    Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.
+
+    When the group of people arose at last
+    And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
+    As lingeringly through the rooms they passed
+    I saw that she followed alone.
+
+    Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
+    Before a throng on a festal night
+    She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes
+    Were like pools which reflected light.
+
+    She followed on slowly after the last
+    As though some object must be passed by,
+    And yet as if were it once but passed
+    She would no longer walk but fly.
+
+
+
+
+    THE SPANISH DANCER
+
+
+    As a lit match first flickers in the hands
+    Before it flames, and darts out from all sides
+    Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
+    Of spectators--she, quivering, glowing stands
+    Poised tensely for the dance--then forward glides
+
+    And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.
+    Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,
+    And with a daring art at her command
+    Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
+    From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
+    Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.
+
+    And then, as though the fire fainter grows,
+    She gathers up the flame--again it glows,
+    As with proud gesture and imperious air
+    She flings it to the earth; and it lies there
+    Furiously flickering and crackling still--
+    Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
+    Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
+    And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.
+
+
+
+
+    OFFERING
+
+
+    My body glows in every vein and blooms
+    To fullest flower since I first knew thee,
+    My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;
+    Who art thou then--thou who awaitest me?
+
+    When from the past I draw myself the while
+    I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;
+    I only know the radiance of thy smile,
+    Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.
+
+    Through childhood's years I wandered unaware
+    Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests
+    To offer thee, as on an altar fair
+    That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair
+    And wreathed by the blossoms of thy breasts.
+
+
+
+
+    LOVE SONG
+
+
+    When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
+    How shall I tune it then to other things?
+    O! That some spot in darkness could be found
+    That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.
+    But everything that touches you and me
+    Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
+    Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
+    And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
+    O! Sweet song--
+
+
+
+
+    ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
+
+
+    We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
+    Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
+    But from his torso gleaming light is shed
+    As from a candelabrum; inward bent
+    His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
+    The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
+    Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
+    Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
+    Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
+    Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
+    Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
+    Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
+    There is no spot that does not bind you fast
+    And transport you back, back to a far past.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK OF HOURS
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of A Monk's Life_
+
+
+
+
+    I live my life in circles that grow wide
+    And endlessly unroll,
+    I may not reach the last, but on I glide
+    Strong pinioned toward my goal.
+
+    About the old tower, dark against the sky,
+    The beat of my wings hums,
+    I circle about God, sweep far and high
+    On through milleniums.
+
+    Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
+    Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
+
+
+
+
+    Many have painted her. But there was one
+    Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
+    Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
+    When he was suffering she came to him,
+    And all the heavy pain within his heart
+    Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
+    His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
+    Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
+    Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
+    A trembling smile softly begins to dawn ...
+    Though angels with seven candles light the place
+    You cannot read the secret of her face.
+
+
+
+
+    In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
+    In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
+    They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
+    And I dream of young Titians and of others
+    In which the God with shining radiance glows.
+
+    But though my vigil constantly I keep
+    My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
+    A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
+    I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
+    More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
+    My branches only are swayed by the wind.
+
+
+
+
+    Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
+    Against thee all my surging senses sing?
+    About thy face in circles drawing near
+    My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
+
+    Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
+    In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
+    But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
+    Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
+
+    When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
+    But when thou art awake I am thy Will
+    Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
+    Expanding like far space star-lit and still
+    Into the distant mystic realm of Time.
+
+
+
+
+    I love my life's dark hours
+    In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
+    While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
+    Or letters old, I magically steep
+    Myself in days gone by: again I give
+    Myself unto the past:--again I live.
+
+    Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
+    Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...
+
+    Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
+    Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
+    'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
+    And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
+    Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
+    Are lost once more in sadness and in song.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Pilgrimage_
+
+
+
+
+    By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
+    That like a whisper floats about all men,
+    The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
+    After the hour has struck, to close again.
+
+    And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
+    And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
+    As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
+    So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.
+
+
+
+
+    All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
+    And those who find would bind Thee
+    To gesture and to form.
+
+    But I would comprehend Thee
+    As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
+    Thou growest with my maturity,
+    Thou Art in calm and storm.
+
+    I ask of Thee no vanity
+    To evidence and prove Thee.
+    Thou Wert in eons old.
+
+    Perform no miracles for me,
+    But justify Thy laws to me
+    Which, as the years pass by me.
+    All soundlessly unfold.
+
+
+
+
+    In a house was one who arose from the feast
+    And went forth to wander in distant lands,
+    Because there was somewhere far off in the East
+    A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
+    And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
+    Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.
+
+    In another house was the one who had died,
+    Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
+    And ever within the walls did abide--
+    For out of the house he could no more pass.
+    And his children set forth to seek for the spot
+    Where stands the great Church which he forgot.
+
+
+
+
+    Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
+    Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
+    And without feet I still can follow you,
+    And without voice I still can to you call.
+    Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
+    Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
+    Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
+    As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
+    And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
+    Through all the singing currents of my blood.
+
+
+
+
+    In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
+    To seek you over the wide world I roam,
+    For all abundance is but meager measure
+    Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.
+
+    Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
+    Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
+    You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
+    Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?
+
+    My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
+    Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
+    To find you before day to night has drifted;
+    I reach out into space to seek you there ...
+
+    Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
+    Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
+    You come, and over earth a magic vesture
+    Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.
+
+
+
+
+_The Book of Poverty and Death_
+
+
+
+
+    Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
+    That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
+    But that had once from Life received all this
+    Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
+    From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
+    A thing apart, a parable in stone.
+
+
+
+
+    Alone Thou wanderest through space,
+    Profound One with the hidden face;
+    Thou art Poverty's great rose,
+    The eternal metamorphose
+    Of gold into the light of sun.
+
+    Thou art the mystic homeless One;
+    Into the world Thou never came,
+    Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
+    Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
+    Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!
+
+
+
+
+    A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
+    Make me a listener at Thy stone,
+    Give to me vision and then wake me
+    Upon Thy oceans all alone.
+    Thy rivers' courses let me follow
+    Where they leap the crags in their flight
+    And where at dusk in caverns hollow
+    They croon to music of the night.
+    Send me far into Thy barren land
+    Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
+    Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
+    August symbols of unlived lives.
+    There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
+    And behind them a blind man goes:
+    With him I will walk till day is done
+    Up the pathway that no one knows ...
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke
+
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