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diff --git a/38594.txt b/38594.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b97e3d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/38594.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2186 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 38594.txt or 38594.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/9/38594/ + +Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at +http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made +available by the Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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