RAINER MARIA RILKE

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

RAINER MARIA RILKE
“Archaic Torso of Apollo”

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

RAINER MARIA RILKE
"To Say For Going To Sleep"

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
by someone to sit and be,
I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep
and attend you in slumber and out.
I would like to be the only one in the house
who would know: The night was cold.
And you would like to hearken within and without
to you, to the world, to the woods,—
The clocks call striking to each other,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And below a strange man passes yet
and rouses a strange dog.
Behind that comes stillness. I have laid
my eyes upon you wide;
they hold you gently and let you go
when something stirs in the dark.

Translated by M.D. Hester Norton

-

RAINER MARIA RILKE
“The Neighbor”

Strange violin, are you following me?
In how many distant cities already
has your lonely night spoken to mine?
Do hundreds play you? Or does one?
Are there in all great cities
such as without you would
already have lost themselves in the rivers?
And why does it always happen to me?
Why am I always neighbor to those
who fearfully force you to sing
and to say: Life is heavier
than the heaviness of all things?

Translated by M.D. Hester Norton

ROBERT FROST
"North of Boston"

I had for my winter evening walk-
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.

And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.

Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

-

RAINER MARIA RILKE
"The Neighbor"

Strange violin, are you following me?
In how many distant cities already
has your lonely night spoken to mine?
Do hundreds play you? Or does one?
Are there in all great cities
such as without you would
already have lost themselves in the rivers?
And why does it always happen to me?
Why am I always neighbor to those
who fearfully force you to sing
and to say: Life is heavier
than the heaviness of all things?

M.D. Herter Norton translation

RAINER MARIA RILKE

"To Say for Going to Sleep"

_____________________

I would like to sing someone to sleep,

have someone to sit by and be with.

I would like to cradle you and softly sing,

be your companion while you sleep or wake.

I would like to be the only person

in the house who knew: the night outside was cold.

And would like to listen to you

and outside to the world and to the woods.

The clocks are striking, calling to each other,

and one can see right to the edge of time.

Outside the house a strange man is afoot

and a strange dog barks, wakened from his sleep.

Beyond that comes stillness.

My eyes rest upon your face wide;

and they hold you gently, letting you go

when something moves in the dark.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910

____________________

And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.

MARGARET ATWOOD

"Variation On The Word Sleep"

____________________

I would like to watch you sleeping,

which may not happen.

I would like to watch you,

sleeping. I would like to sleep

with you, to enter

your sleep as its smooth dark wave

slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent

wavering forest of bluegreen leaves

with its watery sun & three moons

towards the cave where you must descend,

towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver

branch, the small white flower, the one

word that will protect you

from the grief at the center

of your dream, from the grief

at the center I would like to follow

you up the long stairway

again & become

the boat that would row you back

carefully, a flame

in two cupped hands

to where your body lies

beside me, and as you enter

it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

"To Say For Going To Sleep"

____________________

I would like to sing someone to sleep,

by someone to sit and be,

I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep

and attend you in slumber and out.

I would like to be the only one in the house

who would know: The night was cold.

And you would like to hearken within and without

to you, to the world, to the woods,—

The clocks call striking to each other,

and one sees to the bottom of time.

And below a strange man passes yet

and rouses a strange dog.

Behind that comes stillness. I have laid

my eyes upon you wide;

they hold you gently and let you go

when something stirs in the dark.

Translated by M.D. Hester Norton

RAINER MARIA RILKE

"Lovesong"

____________________

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 when’er your depth 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—

RAINER MARIA RILKE
____________________

Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connexion with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

"I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone Enough"

____________________

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough

to truly consecrate the hour.

I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough

to be to you just object and thing,

dark and smart.

I want my free will and want it accompanying

the path which leads to action;

and want during times that beg questions,

where something is up,

to be among those in the know,

or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,

never be blind or too old

to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.

I want to unfold.

Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;

for there I would be dishonest, untrue.

I want my conscience to be

true before you;

want to describe myself like a picture I observed

for a long time, one close up,

like a new word I learned and embraced,

like the everyday jug,

like my mother’s face,

like a ship that carried me along

through the deadliest storm.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

____________________

He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.

 

RAINER MARIA RILKE
"Again and Again"
____________________

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

____________________

The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

____________________

And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

"Cemetery"

____________________

Is there an after-taste of life in these graves? And in the flowers’ mouths do bees find the hint of a word refusing speech? O flowers, prisoners of our instincts toward happiness, do you return to us with our dead in your veins? Flowers, how can you escape our grip? How can you not be our flowers? Does the rose really use all its petals to fly away from us? Does it want to be only a rose, nothing but a rose? No one’s sleep beneath so many eyelids?

—Translated by A. Poulin, Jr.

RAINER MARIA RILKE
Sonnets to Orpheus, Book Two, XIII

____________________

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

RAINER MARIA RILKE
"To Say For Going To Sleep"

____________________

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
by someone to sit and be,
I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep
and attend you in slumber and out.
I would like to be the only one in the house
who would know: The night was cold.
And you would like to hearken within and without
to you, to the world, to the woods,—
The clocks call striking to each other,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And below a strange man passes yet
and rouses a strange dog.
Behind that comes stillness. I have laid
my eyes upon you wide;
they hold you gently and let you go
when something stirs in the dark.


Translated by M.D. Hester Norton

RAINER MARIA RILKE - “Loneliness”

Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
to heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.
It rains down on us in those twittering
hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
and when two bodies who have found nothing,
disappointed and depressed, roll over;
and when two people who despise each other
have to sleep together in one bed–
that is when loneliness receives the rivers …

RAINER MARIA RILKE - "To Say For Going To Sleep"

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
by someone to sit and be,
I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep
and attend you in slumber and out.
I would like to be the only one in the house
who would know: The night was cold.
And you would like to hearken within and without
to you, to the world, to the woods,—
The clocks call striking to each other,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And below a strange man passes yet
and rouses a strange dog.
Behind that comes stillness. I have laid
my eyes upon you wide;
they hold you gently and let you go

when something stirs in the dark.


Translated by M.D. Hester Norton

RAINER MARIA RILKE - “Breathe, You Invisible Poem!”

Breath, you invisible poem!
A constant interchange between our clear being
and the world space beyond our seeing
in which I rhythmically become.

Solitary wave whose
gradual sea I am.
Of all possible seas you are parsimonious,
winning the cosmos, with me one gram

in it. How many realms of space have been
inside me already! The multiple wind
is like my son.

Air, do you know me? You are full of places
once mine. A uniquely smooth rind,
a leaf of my words among roundnesses.