R A I N E R M A R I A R I L K E is one of the finest poets of our

century, and without a doubt the greatest German

poet since Goethe. Sixty years after his death in 1926
his influence is ever growing, capturing the hearts
and imagination of an ever wider readership, espe-
cially in the English-speaking world. The intimate,
intense and lyrical voice of Rilke speaks directly to
the concerns and yearnings of men and women
today.

Albert Flemming's acclaimed translations represent

the fruition of a lifetime's reading and reflection on
Rilke's poetry from which he has sought both in-
spiration and a spiritual comfort.

This is the most comprehensively representative

single selection of Rilke's verse in English. Here are
over 120 poems from his nine most important collec-
tions of verse, including the D u i n o E l e g i e s , the
crowning expression of his poetic vision. A number
of these poems have never previously been trans-
lated into English.

This volume of wonderfully resonant and faithful

translations constitute the ideal introduction to
Rilke's verse for those coming to it for the first time.
For those already familiar with Rilke's poetry,
Flemming will reveal it anew.
 RAINER MARIA

RILKE
SELECTED POEMS

T R A N S L A T E D BY

A l b e r t Ernest F l e m m i n g

W i t h an Introduction by
Dr. Victor Lange
This edition published 2011 by Routledge:
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue 2 Park Square, M i l t o n Park
N e w York, N Y 10017 Abingdon, Oxon O X 1 4 4 R N

Reprinted in 1990 by
Routledge, an imprint of
Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th St.
New York, N.Y. 10001
Translations Copyright © 1983,1985 by
Albert Ernest Flemming
Introduction Copyright © 1985 by Methuen, Inc.
Second expanded edition published in the United States of
America in 1985 by Methuen, Inc., 29 West 35th Street,
New York, N.Y. 10001
First edition published by Golden Smith Associates, Florida.
A series of these translations appeared in the Home Forum
section of the Christian Science Monitor,
Boston, Mass., between 1980 through 1984.
Reproductions by courtesy of the Ernst Barlach Museum,
Giistrow, German Democratic Republic.
Cover illustration:
Family of Saltimbanques; Pablo Picasso;
National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C.; Chester Dale Collection
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechan-
ical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926.
Rainer Maria Rilke.
1. Rilke, Rainer Maria, 1875-1926—Translations,
English. I. Flemming, Albert Ernest. II. Title.
PT2635.I65A2352 1985 831\912 85-18890
ISBN 0-416-01211-6 ISBN 0-415-90405-6 (pbk.)
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In addition to the appreciation of my family i n

England, I would like to express my thanks for the
encouragement given to me by many friends. W i t h -
out such encouragement I would not have had the
incentive to continue these translations.

Among these friends I wish to mention the follow-

ing:
D r . and M r s . R o b i n Anderson
D r . and M r s . Wesley B . Argo
M r s . H e n r i Bercovici
D r . Margaret Bowlby
M m e . N o r a h Drewett de Kresz
M r s . Rosalyn Goldberg
Rev. Father A r t h u r C. Kreinheder, C S C ,
M r s . Patricia Love
D r . Albert F. M a i e r
M r . and M r s . J o h n Mallett
D r . Robert A . Moorehead
M r . Earle Moss
D r . A r n o l d Orlick
M r . Ross Parmenter
M r . Steven Ratiner
M r s . Walter E . Rogan
M r s . Adeline Rosenblatt
M r . Graeme S m i t h
M r s . Elizabeth T a i t
Professor D r . Friedrich Weinhardt
 IN M E M O R Y

T h e translation of
" A l m o n d trees i n bloom"
("Mandelbaume i n Blute")
was composed i n memory
of Albert Flemming's brother
GEORGE,
who died i n his adopted Spain,
Malaga, August 27, 1982.
 To
LA DONIS J A M E S KING

in gratitude
for the happy journey
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

T h e idea of translating the poetry of Rainer M a r i a R i l k e

into English goes back to the thirteen years spent i n
Southern Germany at private schools, college and the
state conservatory of music. H i s poetry, prose works and
revealing letters had a decisive influence on my forma-
tive years. It was then that I began my first translations
for the enjoyment of my family and friends back home i n
London.
Years later, when serving i n the R o y a l Canadian
Army's Auxiliary Services during W o r l d W a r II, I was
asked by fellow officers and men to introduce them to
Rilke's poetry: friends who were stationed i n far-off
places, i n submarines, the Atlantic Ferry Command, on
mine sweepers i n the Caribbean; American friends on
lonely Pacific atolls, i n isolated military hospitals i n the
Californian desert, taking care of the endless arrival of
war casualties. Rilke's poetry provided a spiritual com-
fort that they desperately needed during those trying
years. Some of these friends lost their l i v e s . . . .
After retiring to Florida, I was asked by a friend to
translate Rilke's poem " R o m a n Fountain at the V i l l a
Borghese". H e was so impressed with the translation
that he suggested I submit it to the C h r i s t i a n S c i e n c e
M o n i t o r ' s Home Forum. T h e poem was accepted and
published i n 1980 and was subsequently followed by
other poems during the following four years.

9
 W i t h this encouragement and the enthusiastic accep-
tance of the poems by friends, I decided to present the
translations in book form.
Some people may question the need for one more
translation of Rilke's poetry. M y justification is based on
the inadequacy of many translations. Rilke's meaning is
often obscured, sometimes totally misrepresented. Some
translators seem to work solely with a dictionary at their
side and do not have sufficient knowledge of the German
language where a word may have various meanings just
as we find in the English language. Others try desper-
ately to make the lines rhyme, an impossible task, and
thereby choose wrong or unsuitable words. The sad
truth is that a poem in any language cannot be rendered
verbatim in rhythm and rhyme into another language.
The translator faces a demanding task as a recreating
artist and writer. He is expected to represent faithfully
the original text, but he must succeed i n doing this i n his
own language without being awkward. H e must be alert
in choosing vocabulary, syntax and cadence. If I may
give an illustration using the word "Sunset". In " T h e
Apple Orchard" the first strophe ends on the word 'Son-
nenuntergang' which is the German equivalent of 'Sun-
set'. T o achieve the same five syllables with an equal
distribution of the evenly divided accent I chose " . . .
watch the sun go down". Then, too, Rilke invents words
that cannot be found i n any German dictionary and you
work hard to search for his intended meaning. A n d
sometimes you discover that a word has its origin i n a no
longer used medieval expression.

10
 Often his language is so compact that at times it seems
like having to unravel patiently a skein of wool to find
the beginning thread of understanding.
Rilke was foremost a lyric poet. Translations of his
poems must f l o w , even though the lines' rhythm may
have to change and the endings do not rhyme. The
' s o n g ' , the ' m e a n i n g ' must be as close to the original as
possible—and that is the difficult task that faces the
translator. This is why a sound knowledge of German is
essential.
Redington Shores, Florida
Spring 1983.

11
Be patient toward all that
is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions
themselves.

Rainer Maria Rilke

(from his letters)

12
 INTRODUCTION

BY DR VICTOR LANGE

In that extraordinary group of Austro-German writers

who emerged at the turn of the century to create within
some 30 years a literary canon of the highest imaginative
and philosophical rank, Rainer M a r i a R i l k e is one of the
most remarkable. B o r n i n Prague i n 1875, unhappy i n a
childhood determined by an eccentric mother, he spent
some years (1886-1891) at two Austrian military acade-
mies and completed his education i n L i n z and Prague. It
was i n the years between 1891 and 1897 that Rene (as he
was called until 1897) wrote, and soon published, his first
collection of poetry ( L e b e n u n d L i e d e r / L i f e a n d
Songs, 1894; L a r e n o p f e r / O f f e r i n g s o f Diverse
P o e m s , 1895; T r a u m g e k r o n t / C r o w n e d b y D r e a m s ,
1896), undistinguished sentimental poems, imitative of
Heine and minor contemporary poets, vague i n percep-
tion and unsure i n theme and imagery. There was cer-
tainly little indication of the intensity of feeling and
reflection or the sharpness of observation that were to
become the conspicuous quality of his later work. In his
single-minded determination to clarify and develop his
talent (and to stylize his private life) i n pointed opposi-
tion to the bourgeois conventions of the time, he fol-
lowed the admired models of the French symbolist
poets, of Wilde, Swinburne and d'Annuncio, of Maeter-
link, Stefan George and the young Hofmannsthal. A cer-
tain detachment, an aversion to maintaining ties of
permanent friendship, a restless compulsion to travel,
his preference for works of art rather than direct human

13
encounters as the source of his imaginative work, all
these remained to the end characteristic of Rilke's life.
In 1896 he moved to M u n i c h and there, stimulated by
the painters and writers who lived i n that lively center of
art and literature, he read widely, especially the works of
Jens Peter Jacobsen, and met, among others, the novel-
ist Jacob Wassermann who introduced him to L o u
Andreas-Salomé. T h i s remarkable woman, fourteen
years his senior, born i n St. Petersburg, was a friend of
Nietzsche, of Gerhart Hauptmann, Wedekind,
Schnitzler and later (1911) a close collaborator of
Freud's. She was the author of two religious tracts i n
which she describes the loss of belief i n a personal God
and her faith, instead, in an all-embracing, all-sustaining
Eros.
It was L o u Andreas-Salome's influence that pro-
foundly affected Rilke's view of himself, of his scope as a
poet and of the relationship between his sensibility and
the world of concrete reality. What had so far been a
mere impressionistic accumulation of miscellaneous and
momentary experiences now became i n each poetic
statement an intensely circumscribed field of introspec-
tion or of vision and contemplation, focussed i n remem-
bered figures, incidents and objects. The character and
the fervor of his love for L o u Salomé is rendered (1897)
in the ecstatic poem that opens the present volume:
"Extinguish T h o u my eyes . . . "
In the company of L o u and her husband, he spent
some time i n Berlin, and (1898) in Florence, receptive at
all times to aesthetic impressions, drawing from them a
religious commitment to producing images of a kind of
piety that "creates" God instead of only regarding H i m
as an absolute postulate. In 1899 he published (and i n

14
1909 revised) his first substantial collection of poetry
( M i r Z u r F e i e r / F o r M e t o C e l e b r a t e , later D i e Frühen
G e d i c h t e / E a r l y P o e m s ) , less vaguely preoccupied with
musical or picturesque effects, more precise in outline
and, tentatively, anticipating certain motifs—"God,"
" W o r d " or "Angel"—that were to recur and grow more
subtle in his later work.
Rilke's intellectual and poetic horizon was immeasur-
ably enlarged by two journeys to Russia with Professor
and M r s . Andreas, during which he joined i n the Ortho-
dox Easter celebrations i n the K r e m l i n and met Tolstoy
as well as the painters Pasternak and Repin. Deeply af-
fected by the profound religious faith of the Russian
people, he wrote a number of shorter works that for long
assured his popularity: T h e T a l e o f t h e L o v e a n d D e a t h
of Cornet Christopher Rilke; T h e Book o f Monastic
L i f e ; S t o r i e s o f t h e G o o d L o r d and the poems that were
later collected in D a s S t u n d e n b u c h ( T h e B o o k o f
P r a y e r s ) , Especially a second visit to Russia (1900)
deepened his affection for the simple life of peasants and
monks whose devotion he admired and sought to emu-
late as a form of daily involvement i n the divine crea-
tion.
"Russia," Rilke was to say at the end of his life, "was
in a certain sense the foundation of my ways of ex-
periencing and of absorbing the world": it was not so
much, he meant, an aesthetic as an existential
progression. Indeed, the fascination with the romantic
mysticism that he witnessed i n Russia encouraged i n
him a tendency towards indistinct and simple-minded
religious sentiments and, in turn, a kind of poetry more
pure in heart than scrupulous. For two years, having
parted from L o u Andreas-Salome, he settled i n the art-

15
ists colony of Worpswede, entered into a brief and u n -
congenial marriage, wrote occasional poems and
reviews, but terminated this unproductive interlude i n
1902 and moved to Paris i n order to write a biography of
the sculptor Rodin.
Here he lived until 1914, twelve years of extraordinary
consequence for his development as a poet. " P a r i s , " he
concluded the sentence i n which he speaks first of R u s -
sia, "Paris—the incomparable—was the basis of my will
to deal with shapes and figures." H e had for some time
been determined to rid his poetry of all merely narrative
or private elements, and i n the collection of poems writ-
ten i n Worpswede, T h e B o o k o f I m a g e s ( D a s B u c h d e r
B i l d e r ) he aims (as yet without complete success) at a
concentrated perception, at giving significance to an
event by gathering i n the poem the sum of patient re-
flection and metaphorical speech. A s we withdraw, he
seems to argue, from the familiar world that we take for
granted, we learn to "see" implications and structures
that bring about a rich and distinctive universe, a
" w o r l d " of significant relationships.
T h e first years i n Paris, with occasional journeys to
Rome, Denmark and Sweden, decisively altered the
manner and quality of his poetic work. The poems which
he now included i n the enlarged version of the B o o k o f
P r a y e r s (1905) are appealing i n their measured musical
language and their lively pictorial material. Despite the
title, the theme that binds these poems together is secu-
lar and not monastic. It is the life and procedure of the
artist, constantly tested, it is the praise of art, of writing
and of painting, and the acts of singing, confessing and
enunciating—all means of giving concreteness to the re-
ality of the divine—that form the tenor of this collection.

16
 Rilke's close association with R o d i n and his admira-
tion for Cezanne produced that astonishing disavowal of
mere incidental inspiration and indistinct poetic effu-
siveness and brought about, instead, the firm and "ob-
jective" manner that soon produced poetry of the most
severe perfection. R o d i n taught h i m the craft of drawing
the utmost meaning from the precise rendering of a sim-
ple object, the evocation of essential features by an exact
conveying of the nuances and the translucency of the
surface. What he learned from Cezanne was the impor-
tance of order and design, a careful procedure of struc-
turing each image, each gesture, each line or stanza. T h e
simple object rather than any random association of i m -
pressions now seemed the most expressive and concise
vehicle for his poetic intentions. In N e w P o e m s ( N e u e
G e d i c h t e ) two chronologically arranged cycles deal with
representative moments i n the history of European cul-
ture, the Bible, classical antiquity, the M i d d l e Ages and
the Renaissance; but many pieces are specifically de-
voted to single objects. If " R o m a n Fountain," " T h e
M e r r y - G o - R o u n d , " the superb " A r c h a i c Torso of
A p o l l o " are i n a strict sense "Dinggedichte" ("thing-
poems"), others deal with animals, with mythological
figures or, like "Self-portrait, 1906" with subjects that
seem to aim at achieving i n words something like the
equivalent of a piece of sculpture. T h e celebrated proto-
type of such concentrated statements, severely reduced
to an apostrophe of their essence, is " T h e Panther," the
first of the "Dinggedichte," written i n 1902. Here and
elsewhere time seems no longer i n flux, it is not an i n t i -
mation of human temporality or the blurring thrust of
development, but the element i n which present abun-
dance is fathomed, undisturbed or momentarily arrested

17
in the act of memory.
T i m e and the recognition of its finality i n death, death
forever present i n life, is one of the central themes of
Rilke's most complex, yet engrossing piece of prose fic-
tion. T h e N o t e b o o k s o f M a l t e L a u r i d s B r i g g e is the ac-
count of a sensitive young Danish nobleman who
experiences i n Paris the extremes of the human condi-
tion, the most intense physical disgust, total loneliness,
the beginnings of madness and an elusive but devastat-
ing sense of anguish. Darkness and negativity, the vile
and the absurd, determine the haunting images and
scenes of this document of self-doubt and spiritual
agony. T h e years of its composition—1904 to 1910—
were for R i l k e a time of continuous travel and unsettled
life. Baudelaire and Cezanne now provide the elements
of an aesthetic creed which no longer aims at the
achievement of beauty i n the traditional sense, but at lu-
cidity and a fearless rendering of states of mind that rec-
ognizes i n the negative and terrifying the evidence of a
totality of Being. Neither the world nor the self can here
be conveyed as an organic whole or, indeed, as a l -
together coherent. Rilke's narrative devices are, i n
consequence, the instruments of disjointedness and dis-
continuity; the flow of events is circuitous, the central
character who, like the hero of Dostoevsky's N o t e s f r o m
t h e U n d e r g r o u n d , cannot comprehend himself as an i n -
telligible human entity, is the sum of the incidents of
horror and shock that he must force himself to confront.
Various forms of death and disease, strange memories,
dreams and apparitions elaborate the features of a world
whose surface is fractured and whose fragments offer
documents of life intelligible only if we succeed i n deny-
ing temporality, if we exist not within the confines of

18
chronology but i n an awareness of what R i l k e calls the
"inherent r h y t h m " of objects or events. T h e work con-
cludes with a curious reinterpretation of the parable of
the Prodigal Son, the legend, as it is here understood, of
"one who did not want to be loved," who leaves his self-
centered family i n order not to have to share their
"mendacious" life. Abroad he learns to live without pos-
sessions or ambition and devotes himself to the love of
God, pure, and unencumbered by a false faith i n re-
sponse or reward. H e returns home to "re-live" his
youth, indifferent to the family's intrusive offerings of
affection, and unwilling to let the love of others con-
strain and limit h i m as an object; he is ready only for the
love of God, but, so end the N o t e b o o k s , " H e was not yet
willing." M a l t e L a u r i d s B r i g g e is one of the most dis-
quieting and searching works of modern fictional prose;
Rilke insisted that it represented "less a descent into
negativity than a strange and dark ascent to a neglected
and remote part of H e a v e n . . . . "
For two years after completing the N o t e b o o k s R i l k e
again travelled extensively, uncertain of his ultimate ef-
fectiveness as a poet. Some of these journeys, such as
three months i n Egypt, were to supply metaphorical
motifs for his later poetry. Through the generosity of the
Princess of T h u r n und Taxis he was able to stay from
October 1911 to M a y 1912 at Castle Duino near Trieste
and there composed T h e L i f e o f t h e V i r g i n M a r y ( D a s
M a r i e n l e b e n ) , a cycle of fifteen poems i n which, drawing
on pictures by the Spanish artist Ribadaniera, he cele-
brates the sensitive and intuitive strength of M a r y , J o -
seph's more commonplace obtuseness and the Savior's
exalted career: " Y o u stood apart and overshadowed me
. . . " ("Pietà"). Once again it is the "great angel" whose

19
appearance mediates between human sensibility and the
realm of transcendent faith. T h a t image of the Angel
recurs throughout Rilke's work, but its invocation i n
these poems coincides on the very day, 21 January 1912,
with the writing i n an astonishing burst of inspiration, of
the first of the D u i n o E l e g i e s , Rilke's greatest achieve-
ment, with its desperate opening question: " W h o , if I
cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierar-
chies?"
T h e First and Second Elegy, the beginning of the
T h i r d and parts of the Sixth, the N i n t h and the T e n t h
were written within a few weeks at Duino; he paused for
a year, constantly preoccupied with the slowly emerging
cycle, traveled i n 1913 i n Spain, lived i n 1914 i n Paris,
produced the F o u r t h Elegy i n M u n i c h i n November of
1915 and completed the work i n February of 1922 at the
tiny "castle" Muzot near Sierre i n Switzerland where he
was to die four years later.
These ten spacious and intricate poems are "elegies"
not i n the formal sense of a series of stanzas i n distichs;
they articulate, rather, the thematic movement, largely
in free verse, from inadequacy and doubt i n the testimo-
nial power of the human performance to the acceptance
of a world of infinitely "telling" concreteness and an u l -
timate rendering of it i n acts of praise and rejoicing. T h e
beginning of the T e n t h Elegy offers the summary of the
cycle as a whole and attempts at the same time an ap-
propriate response to the initial cry of the first: " T h a t
some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision, I
may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!"
The myth, or symbolism, of the "Angels" elaborates
at once the austere projection of an absolute existence
beyond human inquietudes and inadequacies, and envis-

20
ages exemplary models of hope i n accomplishing and af-
firming a sustaining sense of life. T h e topics of the
E l e g i e s range from the potter on the N i l e to Rilke's own
present, from the exploration of consciousness to specu-
lations about the imaginatively "knowing" plants and
animals, articulating their special awareness of being.
These themes, concentrated i n an astounding variety of
images, amplify and paraphrase the subject matter of
the cycle: the limitations of human existence, impri-
soned in temporality and the inescapable circumstances
of being, and instances of transcending it i n acts of total
dedication. While the E l e g i e s lack the unity of a single
intellectual argument and share with other great poems
of our time a deliberate hermetic convolution, irregular
syntax and surprising turns of language, inversion and
alliteration, they are linked by profuse verbal or meta-
phorical variations and associations; they are, above all,
an account of the poetic process and ultimately amount
to a document intended to justify the achievements of
art and poetry as means of giving coherence to a world
no longer stabilized by traditional systems of belief.
" S a y i n g " and "performing" are therefore the two recur-
ring tropes or figures of thought that establish or resolve
the juncture of life and death, of lover and beloved, of
inner and outer reality, of spectator and artist. These are
the very tensions from which the poetic act is born. T o
love as the ultimate offering by which human actions
and feelings can be transcended, the E l e g i e s return
again and again. It is the specific topic of the first three
and the central motif of the first.
Here, in our "interpreted" world, the human being is
without certainty and threatened by the restraints of
temporality and the impermanence of love; yet, praise of

21
the highest intensity of feeling, and an acceptance of the
passing character of life may enhance our existence.
Great examples of love, even though unfulfilled (such as
that of the poetess Gaspara Stampa) will increase our
understanding: "should not their oldest sufferings finally
become more fruitful for us?" (First Elegy). A s well as
the memory of love, it is the continuing presence of
those who died young, those recorded on the tablet i n
Santa M a r i a Formosa, who should give us courage: they
have "accomplished" their death, for "being dead is
hard work and full of retrieving before one can gradually
feel a trace of eternity." The mythical dirge at the death
of Linos filled the space emptied by his passing with
those "vibrations which now enrapture and comfort and
help us."
The serene and perfect Existence of the Angel is, in
the Second Elegy (thematically related to the First),
contrasted with the volatile life of man who, unlike those
Beings, must bear the burden of an infinite tension be-
tween subject and object, the self and the world: "we,
when we feel, evaporate." Lovers, "each satisfied i n the
other," are again invoked as instances of a potential
state of peace and of immunity to the constraints of
time. Love which seeks immediate satisfaction—this is
the argument of the T h i r d Elegy—is insufficient: it i s —
in terms and concepts which Rilke borrowed from
Freud—the unconscious and subconscious erotic drive,
that "hidden guilty river-god of the blood," of which we
cannot "speak" to the Angel. Here, as in the Fourth
Elegy, it is the conflict so frequently treated i n Rilke's
later work, between reflection and an immediate aware-
ness of the true "contour of feeling," that drives the poet
to a profound sort of self-scrutiny. "Before his own

22
heart's curtain" he seeks to differentiate the impulses of
his awareness. When the imaginary stage empties, when
his heart is drained of feeling, when death enters with a
grey draft of emptiness, he continues to watch: but to
the hollow performance of the actor he now prefers pup-
pets in their specific and not "masked" character, and
with utmost concentration calls forth an " A n g e l , " that
being of infinite consciousness and, joined in this vision-
ary space, the puppet who is wholly devoid of conscious-
ness. In this speculative union, " W h a t we separate can
come together by our very presence." W i t h a Rous-
seauean flourish Rilke exempts only children and the
dying from the fateful schism of mind and emotion: the
child who, when it must die, contains death, "the whole
of death, even before life has begun." B u t this, the elegy
concludes, is for us, the divided and oscillating creatures,
an "indescribable condition."
If the Fourth Elegy, written in November of 1915, is
the most bitter, the Fifth is the richest in imagery and
the most coherent in its argument. It was (in February
of 1922) the last to be written and forms the pivotal
piece of the series. For its central motif, Rilke recalled a
performance of Père Rollin's troupe of acrobats in Paris
in 1907 and, in 1915, Picasso's "Les Saltimbanques"
which he saw in M u n i c h in the apartment of its owner,
H e r t h a K o e n i g , to whom the elegy is dedicated. (This
painting is now in the National Gallery in Washington.)
Written at great speed, the poem is nevertheless an ex-
traordinarily deliberate and unified composition. Two
"voices," the voice of lament and that of praise, are here
joined as though in counterpoint, and the Angel is, for
once, called upon to consecrate and illuminate a human
act. The acrobats as symbols of the human condition re-

23
peat with untiring virtuosity their mechanical number,
their "endless leaping and tumbling," producing only
"the thinnest veneer of a sham-smiling surface." In this
sterile exercise the poet recognizes moments of tentative
but authentic feeling: "suddenly i n this wearisome N o -
where . . . suddenly the unspeakable place, where pure
inadequacy incomprehensibly changes—leaps over into
that empty 'too-much.' " The vacuous and restless mo-
tion is i n fact propelled by death, disguised as Madame
Lamort, the milliner who ceaselessly produces tawdry
and glittering creations. T h e envisaged scene of a gen-
uine life is the "place of which we did not know" where,
before the assembly of the "countless silent dead" and
"upon an indescribable carpet" love as the fulfillment of
human self-realization, the "daring lofty leaps of heart-
flight" may be performed and shown.
T o the group of "pure" figures, to children, lovers and
the early dead, the Sixth Elegy now adds the hero,
whose life seems determined by an inner law, and is
given actuality not i n the "mere mobility" of the acro-
bats, but through one huge effort and without distrac-
tion even by love. T h e hero recognizes no dichotomy
between life and death, indeed from a certain perspec-
tive, "fulfills" his heroic character only after death. T h e
five exquisite stanzas end with a summary of motifs that
have occurred throughout the previous poems: "when-
ever the Hero stormed through the stays of love, each
heartbeat intended for h i m could only lift h i m beyond it;
turning away, he stood at the end of the smiles—transfi-
gured."
T h e mood of despair and doubt that configures the
course and material of the first six elegies changes i n the
remaining four to a mood of almost exuberant affirma-

24
tion of the here and now, a paean to nature and the
human existence—even at the present "torpid turn of
the w o r l d " i n which, "ever diminishing, vanishes what is
outside . . . " we must resolve to keep "still recognizable
form" and thus learn that "nowhere can world exist but
within. Life passes i n transformation." T h i s is one of the
metaphors that become the key to Rilke's philosophy of
"internalizing" the ingredients of the experienced world:
"Weltinnenraum" is the term that points, not to any ab-
stract or mystical diminishing of reality but, on the con-
trary, to its reconstruction and absorption within an
"inner space," to an intense concentration on the pre-
cisely envisaged and explored object, " a n invisible re-
arising i n us." T h i s act of transformation is further ex-
plored i n the following elegies, especially the N i n t h , i n
which, recognizing the lamentable transitoriness of our
life and the contradictions i n human nature, the appro-
priate task of "transforming" experience must be made
communicable through "saying," the act, at its most i n -
tense, of poetic creation. " H e r e , " Rilke insists, "is the
time for the tellable, here is its home. Speak and pro-
claim." In memorable lines he justifies his resolution to
testify to the world:

For the Wanderer does not bring home from the

mountain slope a handful of earth to the valley, u n -
tellable earth, but an experienced word, a pure
word, the yellow and blue gentian. Are we perhaps
h e r e just for saying: House, Bridge, Well, Gate, Jug,
Olive Tree, Window,—possibly Pillar, Tower? . . .
but for saying, remember . . .

It is i n the Tenth, the final elegy, that lament and re-

joicing are brought into balance: " T h a t some day," it

25
begins, "emerging at last from the terrifying vision, I
may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!" The
insight which suffering, "our winter's foliage, somber
evergreen" has produced, has joined sorrow and truth,
those premises of our life and death. The grim and sa-
tirical verses i n which once more the inauthentic and
pointless commotion of a mythical "Leid-Stadt," the
city of pain, points to the mindless indifference towards
suffering and death, beyond which "reality," the realm
of significant life, begins, the transition to death and to
the "landscape of lamentation." Here, in a setting remi-
niscent of Egypt, the "Leidland," the land of pain, i n
which, i n the mountains of primal pain, the "Fountain-
head of J o y " receives the young man who has died i n
early youth and who now passes into a land of fulfill-
ment beyond sound and speech. The elegy ends with an
octave of simple and natural images that suggest a bal-
ancing of rising and falling, of happiness and sorrow, of
life and death.
The D u i n o E l e g i e s in their taut concatenation of
images, the wide range of their, at times opaque, symbol-
ism, and the singularly challenging filiations of their lan-
guage, is one of the most demanding works of modern
European literature; they have added a dimension of
prophetic and mythical poetry to German literature that
echoes the voices of Klopstock and Hölderlin and antici-
pates the crystallized verse of Celan.
Rilke was conscious of the enormous effort he made i n
February 1922 to complete (with the Fifth) the cycle of
the E l e g i e s and to offer in these poems the sum total of
his poetic vision. What followed, during the four years
before his death of leukemia, was a prodigious series of
occasional poems that seem to testify to a sense of end-

26
ing, an awareness of life i n the shadow of death, a com-
pulsion to speak i n images as rich i n spiritual resonance
as any i n his previous work. Although often casual i n
subject matter they nevertheless paraphrase i n memora-
ble poetic gestures Rilke's ceaseless resolve to move to-
wards meaning i n a world of lost certainty, where only
the particular and concrete moment of recognition, of
sight and listening hold out the promise of fulfillment.
" M e a n i n g , " this must be recognized, was for R i l k e not
the achieved acceptance of an absolute, or the epitome
of a systematic creed—he was i n fact pointedly skeptical
of any orthodox Christian postulates—but the result of
contemplating and comprehending the structure, the to-
tality of an object or a situation, an act of insight made
possible essentially i n and through the performance of
language.
While R i l k e completed the E l e g i e s he produced,
within a few days, "as though they were dictated," a se-
ries of S o n n e t s t o O r p h e u s , more than 50 poems ar-
ranged i n two corresponding parts. H e here evokes the
m y t h of Orpheus, the inventor of hymnic songs of praise,
but specifies the general thrust of the traditional associ-
ation by exploring the instrumental senses of saying and
listening and altogether returning throughout these son-
nets to what might be called the existential polarities of
life and death, faith and doubt, sleep and waking, unity
and discrepancy. In the S o n n e t s these disparate states
are no longer seen as challenges beyond comprehension
or resolution; they are now accepted as inherent i n the
human condition, as relationships to be courageously ex-
perienced and as the appropriate topics of testimonial
speech and praise. Just as Orpheus, i n the midst of
death, enchanted the netherworld with his song, Rilke's

27
sonnets are exercises i n acceptance and celebration.
Their tone is exuberant rather than plaintive, the pace
of their language lively, their phrasing often hectic; the
listener to be addressed is no longer the Angel but the
responsive reader. The organs of perception, eye, ear
and mouth, supply the recurring images; sleep and wak-
ing, breath and heartbeat circumscribe the elements
that offer insight and reassurance. The voice of the first
Sonnet draws us urgently into the topography which
promises " a new beginning"; the joined realms of space
and sound, of object and movement, of the interdepen-
dent modes of singing and silence, the magic presence of
Orpheus:

There rose a tree. 0 magic transcendence!

Orpheus sings! A n d i n the ear a tree!
Silence reigned. Y e t even i n this silence
a new beginning dawned and changes came.

For creatures stepped soundlessly from clearings

of forests and left lair and nest behind;
and all this happened not through fear or fright
that made them so intent on keeping still:

the better to listen. Howling, crying,

roaring seemed small within their hearts. A n d where
there was scarcely a hut to shelter them....

a hiding place out of their darkest longings,

with an entrance gate whose structure t r e m b l e d , . . .
there you created temples i n their ears!

28
 " T h e temple i n the ear," the place of communication
and worship, is the gift of the singer, of Orpheus, who, as
the ninth Sonnet puts it, is the supreme witness of life
and death:

Only who holds the lyre

among the shadows
may be allowed to render
the infinite praise.

Only who with the dead shared

their own poppy seeds
will never lose the sound of
their softest of tones.

The reflection at times may

seem blurred i n the pool:
know the image.

Only i n the two-fold realm

do voices become
eternal and mild.

Orpheus is the "fountain-head, whose never silent

mouth / speaks endlessly of all that's great and pure . . . "
(fifteenth Sonnet).
T h e doubt i n any available mode that might trans-
cend the impermanence of life, so emphatically the
theme of the E l e g i e s , is i n the fifth Sonnet dispelled and
memorably replaced by the praise of Orpheus who is
part of a finite and transitory world. He is the rose i n one
of his metamorphoses; while he must leave, his word
surpasses his being here. "Does Orpheus belong here?"

29
is the question which the Sixth Sonnet categorically
denies: he is the singer of life as well as death, that is to
say, he asserts the unity of life. A n d as he exists in two
realms, he becomes the ultimate witness of that " D o p -
pelbereich," of that interplay of life and death, for which
Rilke throughout his work sought adequate images, and
which is here illuminated in sharper focus and conveyed
as a more positive vision than i n any of his earlier po-
etry. Praise, he had often said, is not merely the corrol-
lary of lament, but the act without which all lament is
vain and self-indulgent. In a previous poem, " 0 tell us,
poet, what it is you do?" (see C o l l e c t e d P o e m s ) the
question is posed i n radical terms: " I n the midst of
deadly turmoil, what helps you endure, and how do you
survive?"—"Das Todliche und Ungetiime, / Wie haltst
du's aus, wie nimmst du's hin?" Rilke's confident answer
is: " I praise,"—"Ich rühme."
Certain that he had fulfilled his most formidable task
as a poet, and aware, during the few remaining years of
his life, of his fatal disease, Rilke continued to write,
often i n a haunting state of inspiration and now with an
impressive mastery of linguistic and formal resources, an
extraordinary number of superb poems, many of them i n
French. These were not the first i n that language but
now as before indicative of a strong sense of affinity to
Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and of his friendship with
Gide, Claudel and, above all, Valery, whose "Cimetiere
M a r i n " he had translated in 1921. In all these the famil-
iar themes and metaphors recur, simplified and, indeed,
elegantly turned into lucid vehicles of serenity and as-
sent. H i s last poem, the final entry i n his notebook, writ-
ten two weeks before his death on 29 December 1926, is
the anguished sequence of stanzas: "Come thou, thou

30
last one, whom I recognize."

Neither the person nor the poet Rilke is easily as-

sessed or defined. From the first unhappy years and the
awkward and sentimental early efforts at writing poetry,
his life was wholly dedicated to the pursuit of art, the de-
termination to render in his work an impulse at once
aesthetic and religious, that would draw meaning from
the world about h i m and give testimony to the inextric-
ably interwoven experiences of affirmation and despair,
inadequacy and achievement, belief in the present mo-
ment and the compulsion to transcend it.
In its totality, Rilke's work reflects his personal life
and disposition, as well as, and perhaps even more so,
the curiously pessimistic historical climate that became
palpable at the turn of the century. H e felt and recorded
the pervasive doubt in the strength or adequacy of a
modern rationalistic society, and shared the double per-
spectives which since Schopenhauer and Nietzsche had
become widely accepted axioms of life—the withdrawal
into a melancholy lyricism and, concomitant with it, an
assertion of life in its most abundant form, defiant of the
debilitating restrictions of bourgeois conventions.
H e was extraordinarily sensitive to the deeply dis-
turbing signs of this cultural unrest and, without any
sustained interest in theoretical discourse, learned to
draw conclusions from the work of contemporary artists,
of painters such as Cezanne, sculptors such as R o d i n and
writers such as Flaubert, Jacobsen and Tolstoy, but
above all from the French symbolist poets. The first de-
cisive encounter with a form of life that seemed to h i m
"complete" and exemplary was his sharing of the reli-

31
gious ethos of Russian peasants; the subsequent years i n
Paris changed the direction of his spiritual and aesthetic
aspirations. While not at all inclined to enter into inti-
mate and responsible friendships, he was eager to reach
out to women and men who seemed to h i m receptive and
congenial. B u t it is not too much to say that after uncer-
tain and juvenile beginnings, his life was devoted with
single-minded conviction and determination to the ar-
ticulation of his experiences in poetry of an ever more
demanding sort. "Poetry," he was to say, "is more i m -
portant than any human relationship." T h e musical
charm of his verse remained one of the fascinating, at
times dangerously seductive, elements of his poetry and,
together with an often imprecise but vaguely moving a l -
lusiveness, one of the chief reasons for his extraordinary
popularity.
R i l k e was slow i n maturing, slow in overcoming his
early sentimentality and the ease of his mystical pos-
ture; slow also in repressing his obsessive fondness for
poetic ornament and the glibness of his play with words,
his forced assonances, alliterations and rhymes. Yet,
what was to become the signature of Rilke's work was an
incomparable virtuosity in inventing and linking meta-
phors and the ability to produce the most subtle and
evocative shades of speech i n poetry that is, unlike the
work of most of his European contemporaries, almost
entirely self-contained and self-referential. F r o m the be-
ginning his visual sensibility was remarkable: it was to
be the powerful instrument and medium of his later ac-
complished p o e t r y — " S e h e n " and " S c h a u e n " recur as
the most productive impulses of his efforts at "perceiv-
ing," recovering and, i n his terms, "creating" the phe-
nomenal world. The lilt and melodiousness of his thin

32
but fluid youthful verses turned, as his self-denying
mastery increased, into that characteristic postulate of
"praise," the echoing of the music of Orpheus, the sing-
ing of assent to the created universe.
Rilke's much-quoted line i n the Seventh Elegy,
"Hiersein ist herrlich" ("to be here, alive, is wonderful"),
is, indeed, the key to his increasingly unambiguous faith
in the totality of a profoundly perceptive life, a life i n
which negativity and hope, the awareness of temporality
and altogether the full understanding of the frailty of
existence are recognized not as agonizing alternatives
but as relationships within one inexhaustible whole. T h e
changing function of the concept of death, that domi-
nant and constant image of his entire work, is symptom-
atic of the slow shift i n his perspective and assessment of
life: life with the terror of its finality is increasingly given
meaning and intelligibility as death is accepted as one of
its most powerful dimensions. Grief for the dead was for
that reason one of Rilke's most moving experiences: a
number of " R e q u i e m " poems testify to the challenge
which mourning imposes upon the living.
It is i n the N i n t h Elegy that the interdependence of
life and death, but even more of joy and suffering, re-
solved i n the act of praise, is most memorably stated:

Zwischen den Hämmern besteht unser Herz,/

wie die Zunge zwischen den Zähnen,/
die doch, dennoch, die preisende bleibt.

Our heart exists between hammers, / like the

tongue between our teeth, in spite of which/
the tongue remains always the bestower of praise.

33
 In the E l e g i e s and the S o n n e t s Rilke had moved far
from the neo-romantic word-painting of his first collec-
tions, beyond even the more sharply defined vision of a
world of describable objects and figures i n N e u e G e -
d i c h t e t o " A n s c h a u e n " and " P r e i s e n " ("perceiving" and
"praising"), to the assurance of hymnic exaltation and
the triumphant accomplishment of expressive speech,
giving shape to the elemental impulses of our modern
life, anguish, hope and acceptance. H e fulfilled what i n
M a l t e L a u r i d s B r i g g e he had defined as the essential
prerequisite of a poet's accomplishment:

" A l a s , those verses one writes i n youth aren't much. One

should wait and gather meaning and sweetness all his
life, a long one if possible, and then maybe at the end he
might write ten good lines. For poetry isn't, as people
imagine, merely feelings (these come soon enough); it is
experiences. T o write one line, a man ought to see many
cities, people, and things; he must learn to know animals
and the way of birds i n the air, and should be aware of
the gesture with which little flowers open i n the morn-
ing. One must be able to think back the way to unknown
places, to unexpected encounters and to partings long
foreseen, to days of childhood . . . and to parents whom
one had to hurt when they brought us joy (it was joy for
another), to days on the sea, yes to the sea, to nights of
travel that flew with the stars, and one must have mem-
ories of many nights of love, no two alike . . . and the
screams of women i n childbed . . . one must have sat by
the dying, one must have sat by the dead i n a room with
open windows and intermittent n o i s e s . . . . B u t it is not
enough to have memories. One must be able to forget
them and have much patience until they come again,

34
and memories as such are not enough: only when they
become blood within us, and glances and gestures,
nameless and no longer differentiated from us, only then
it can happen that i n a rare hour the first word of a verse
may arise and come f o r t h . . . . . "

Victor Lange,
Princeton University,
1985.

35
 CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 9
INTRODUCTION BY VICTOR L A N G E 13

F R O M T H E B O O K OF P R A Y E R S
(DAS STUNDENBUCH)
EXTINGUISH THOU M Y EYES 53
(Lösch mir die Augen aus)
THE SEEKER 54
I live my life i n ever widening circles
(Ich lebe mein Leben i n wachsenden Ringen)
DEDICATION 55
I have great faith i n all things
(Ich glaube an Alles noch nie Gesagte)
LORD, G R A N T E V E R Y O N E H I S S O V E R E I G N D E A T H 56
(O Herr, gib jedem seinen eignen Tod)

F R O M T H E B O O K OF IMAGES
(DAS BUCH DER BILDER)
A T SUNDOWN: (ABEND) 59
Slowly the evening starts
(Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewänder)
LAMENT: (KLAGE) 60
O how a l l things are far
(O wie ist alles fern)
A CHILDHOOD M E M O R Y : 61
(AUS E I N E R K I N D H E I T )
Advancing darkness lent a richness to the room
(Das Dunkeln war wie Reichtum i n dem Raume)
A U T U M N D A Y : (HERBSTTAG) 62
Lord, it is time
(Herr: es ist Zeit)

37
A U T U M N : (HERBST) 63
The leaves are falling
(Die Blatter fallen)
S O L E M N HOUR: (ERNSTE STUNDE) 64
Whoever now weeps somewhere i n the world
(Wer jetzt weint irgendwo i n der Welt)
To S A Y B E F O R E G O I N G TO S L E E P : 65
(ZUM EINSCHLAFEN SAGEN)
I would like to sing someone to sleep
(Ich möchte jemanden einsingen)
T H E ANGELS: (DIE ENGEL) 66
They all have tired mouths
(Sie haben alle mude Münde)
FOREBODING: (VORGEFÜHL) 67
I am like a flag unfurled
(Ich bin wie eine Fahne von Fernen umgeben)
REMEMBRANCE: (ERINNERUNG) 68
And you wait, keep waiting
(Und du wartest, erwartest das Eine)
THE NEIGHBOR: (DER NACHBAR) 69
Strange violin
(Fremde Geige, gehst du mir nach?)
NIGHT (AUS EINER STURMNACHT) 70
This night that, agitated by the growing storm
(Die Nacht, vom wachsenden Sturme bewegt)
T H E POET: ( D E R DICHTER) 71
0 hour of muse, why do you leave me?
(Du entfernst dich von mir, du Stunde)
T H E VISIONARY: (DER SCHAUENDE) 72
I see from looking at the wind-tossed trees
(Ich sehe den Bäumen die Sturme an)
T H E L A S T S U P P E R : (DAS A B E N D M A H L ) 74
They are assembled, astonished and disturbed
(Sie sind versammelt, staunende Verstorte)

38
THE VOICES (DIE STIMMEN)
Nine pages with a title page
(Neun Blatter, mit einem Titelblatt)
The rich and fortunate do well 77
(Die Reichen und Glücklichen haben gut)
THE S O N G OF T H E B E G G A R 78
(Das Lied des Bettlers)
THE SONG OF THE BLINDMAN 79
(Das Lied des Blinden)
THE S O N G OF T H E D R U N K A R D 80
(Das Lied des Trinkers)
THE S O N G OF T H E SUICIDE 81
(Lied des Selbstmörders)
THE S O N G OF T H E WIDOW 82
(Das Lied der Witwe)
THE S O N G OF T H E IDIOT 84
(Das Lied des Idioten)
THE S O N G OF T H E O R P H A N 85
(Das Lied der Waise)
THE S O N G OF T H E D W A R F 86
(Das Lied des Zwerges)
THE S O N G OF T H E L E P E R 87
(Das Lied des Aussätzigen)
END P O E M (SCHLUSS S T U C K ) : 88
Death is immense (Der Tod ist gross)

F R O M T H E TWO BOOKS OF N E W POEMS

(NEUE GEDICHTE)
A R C H A I C TORSO OF APOLLO: 91
(ARCHAISCHER TORSO APOLOS)
Lost is for us the sun-god's glorious head
(Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt)

39
E A R L Y A P O L L O : (FRÜHER APOLLO) 92
As when sometimes through branches
(Wie manchesmal durch das noch unbelaubte Gezweig)
R O M A N FOUNTAIN: (RÖMISCHE FONTÄNE) 93
Two basins, one above the other suspended
(Zwei Becken, eins das andre übersteigend)
SONG OF THE SEA: (LIED VOM MEER) 94
Timeless sea breezes, sea-wind of the night
(Uraltes Wehn vom Meer)
C A T H E D R A L OF S A I N T M A R K : 95
(SAN MARCO)
Within this inner space
(In diesem Innern, das wie ausgehöhlt)
T H E APPLE ORCHARD: (DER APFELGARTEN) 96
Come let us watch the sun go down
(Komm gleich nach dem Sonnenuntergange)
SELF PORTRAIT: (SELBSTBILDNIS, 1906) 97
The steadfastness of generations
(Des alten lange adligen Geschlechtes)
L O V E S O N G : (LIEBESLIED) 98
How shall I hold my soul suspensed above you
(Wie soll ich meine Seele halten)
SLIMBER SONG: (SCHLAFLIED) 99
Some day, if I should ever lose you
(Einmal wenn ich dich verlier)
A D A M : ( A D A M , RHEIMS C A T H E D R A L ) 100
High above he stands, beside the many
(Staunend steht er an der Kathedrale)
E V E : (EVA, RHEIMS CATHEDRAL) 101
Look how she stands, high on the steep facade
(Einfach steht sie an der Kathedrale)
S A I N T G E O R G E : ( S A N K T GEORG) 102
And so she called for him throughout the night
(Und sie hatte ihn die ganze Nacht)

40
SAINT SEBASTIAN: (SANKT SEBASTIEN) 103
As one recumbent, so he stands
(Wie ein Liegender, so steht er)
T H E G A Z E L L E : (DIE G A Z E L L E ) 104
Enchanted one: how can the unison of two
(Verzauberte: wie kann der Einklang zweier)
T H E F L A M I N G O S : (DIE F L A M I N G O S ) 105
Like mirror-images of canvases by Fragonard
(In Spiegelbildern wie von Fragonard)
THE SWAN: (DER S C H W A N ) 106
This toiling labor for a goal not yet achieved
(Diese Mühsal, durch noch Ungetanes)
T H E B U L L F I G H T : (CORRIDA) 107
He seemed surprisingly small as he broke out
(Seit er, klein beinah, aus dem Toril)
SPANISH DANCER: (SPANISCHE TÄNZERIN) 108
As in one's hand a lighted match blinds you
(Wie in der Hand ein Schwefelzündholz)
THE P A N T H E R : (DER PANTHER) 110
His tired gaze—from passing endless bars
(Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe)
OVERWHELM M E , MUSIC: 111
(BESTÜRZ MICH, M U S I K )
Overwhelm me, music, with your rhythmic raging!
(Bestürz mich, Musik, mit rhythmischem Zürnen!)
O N H E A R I N G OF A D E A T H : 112
(TODES-ERFAHRUNG)
We lack all knowledge of this parting
(Wir wissen nichts von diesem Hingehen)
T H E U N I C O R N : (DAS E I N H O R N ) 113
The saintly hermit, midway through his prayers
(Der Heilige hob das Haupt, und das Gebet)
THE M E R R Y - G O - R O U N D : (DAS K A R U S S E L L ) 114
Under its roof that casts a cooling shadow
(Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht)

41
 A N G E L OF T H E M E R I D I A N : 116
( L ' A N G E DU M E R I D I E N )
Amidst the storm that round the great cathedral
(Im Sturm, der um die starke Kathedrale)
THE R A I S I N G OF L A Z A R U S : 117
(AUFERWECKUNG DES LAZARUS)
It seemed, i n order to convince those doubting him
(Also, das tat Not fur den und den)
GETHSEMANE (DER ÖLBAUM-GARTEN) 119
He climbed upward beneath the greying foliage
(Er ging hinauf unter dem grauen Laub)
CRUCIFIXION: (KREUZIGUNG) 121
As executioners they had long learned to handle
(Längst geübt, zum kahlen Galgenplatz)
C H R I S T A N D T H E DISCIPLES AT E M M A U S : 122
(EMMAUS)
Not yet by his gait, although strangely
(Noch nicht im gehn)

THE L I F E OF T H E VIRGIN M A R Y :
(DAS MARIENLEBEN) 1912
THE B I R T H OF M A R Y 125
(Geburt Mariä)
THE PRESENTATION OF M A R Y I N T H E T E M P L E : 126
(Die Darstellung Mariä im Tempel)
A N N U N C I A T I O N TO M A R Y : 128
(Mariä Verkündigung)
VISITATION OF T H E V I R G I N : 130
(Mariä Heimsuchung)
JOSEPH'S SUSPICION: 131
(Argwohn Josephs)
A N N U N C I A T I O N ABOVE T H E SHEPHERDS 132
(Verkündigung über den Hirten)

42
 THE B I R T H OF CHRIST: 134
(Christi Geburt)
R E S T ON T H E F L I G H T TO E G Y P T 136
(Rast auf der Flucht nach Ägypten)
OF THE MARRIAGE AT CANA: 138
(Die Hochzeit zu Kana)
B E F O R E T H E PASSION: 140
(Vor der Passion)
PIETÀ: 141
(Pietà)
CONSOLATION OF M A R Y W I T H CHRIST R I S E N 142
(Stillung Mariä mit dem Auferstandenen)
O F T H E D E A T H OF M A R Y
(Vom Tode Maria)
PART I 143
PART II 144
PART III 146

SONNETS TO ORPHEUS (SONETTE AN ORPHEUS)

Muzot, 1922
BOOK O N E :
SONNET #1 T H E R E ROSE A T R E E 149
(Da stieg ein Baum)
SONNET #4 O G E N T L E LOVERS 150
(O ihr Zärtlichen)
SONNET #5 E R E C T N O STONE 151
(Errichted keinen Denkstein)
SONNET #9 O N L Y W H O HOLDS T H E L Y R E 152
(Nur wer die Leier schon hub)
SONNET #10 You, W H O H A V E N E V E R L E F T 153
(Euch, die ihr nie mein Gefühl)
SONNET #12 W E L C O M E , O SPIRIT 154
(Heil dem Geist)

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 SONNET #13 F U L L RIPENED APPLE 155
(Voller Apfel)
SONNET #19 T H O U G H T H E WORLD C H A N G E S 156
(Wandelt sich rasch auch die Welt)

B O O K TWO:
SONNET #4 O T H I S IS T H E A N I M A L T H A T N E V E R L I V E D 157
(O dies ist das Tier)
SONNET #6 O ROSE, E N T H R O N E D 158
(Rose, du thronende)
SONNET #15 O FOUNTAINHEAD 159
(O Brunnenmund)
SONNET #29 SILENT FRIEND 160
(Stiller Freund)

F R O M T H E DUINO ELEGIES:
(DIE DUINESER ELEGIEN)
THE FIRST E L E G Y : (DIE ERSTE E L E G I E ) 163
Who, If I cried out, would hear me...
(Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich...)
THE F O U R T H E L E G Y : (DIE VIERTE E L E G I E ) 168
0 trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
(O Bäume Lebens, o wann winterlich?)
THE FIFTH ELEGY: (DIE FÜNFTE E L E G I E ) 172
Whoever a r e they, tell me, these wayfaring troupers...
(Wer aber s i n d sie, sag mir, die Fahrenden...)
THE SIXTH E L E G Y : (DIE SECHSTE E L E G I E ) 177
Figtree, how long have I discovered meaning
(Feigenbaum, seit wie lange schon ists mir bedeutend)
THE T E N T H E L E G Y : (DIE Z E H N T E E L E G I E ) 180
That some day, emerging at last from the
terrifying vision
(Dass ich dereinst, an dem Ausgang der
grimmigen Einsicht)
E X P L A N A T O R Y NOTES TO T H E E L E G I E S 185

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C O L L E C T E D POEMS COVERING THE Y E A R S F R O M
1 9 0 6 to 1926:
(GESAMMELTE GEDICHTE AUS DEN JAHREN
1906 bis 1926:)
A L M O N D TREES IN BLOOM: 191
( M A N D E L B A U M E I N BLÜTE)
Unendingly I marvel at your flowering
(Unendlich staun ich euch an, ihr Seligen)
SPANISH TRILOGY: (SPANISCHE TRILOGIE)
PART I: O U T OF T H I S C L O U D 192
(Aus dieser Wolke)
PART II: W H Y M U S T SOMEONE G O AND TAKE U P O N
HIMSELF 193
(Warum muss einer gehen)
PART III: THAT I M A Y ALWAYS—WHEN I A M
ONCE AGAIN 194
(Dass mir doch, wenn ich wieder)
To THE ANGEL: ( A N DEN ENGEL) 196
0 Strong and silent angel
(Starker, stiller, an den Rand gestellter)
I N T H E B E G I N N I N G . . . : ( A M A N F A N G ...) 198
Ever since those wondrous days
(Seit den wunderbaren Schopfungstagen)
SUFFERING: (SCHMERZ) 199
Is suffering not good?
(Ist Schmerz, sobald an eine neue Schicht)
R E F L E C T I O N : (WIRD M I R NICHTS NÄCHSTES?) 200
Is there nothing more left for me
(Wird mir nichts Nächstes?)
ST. CHRISTOPHER A N D THE CHRIST C H I L D : 201
(ST. CHRISTOPHER)
His towering strength, his giant frame
(Die grosse Kraft w i l l fur den Grossten sein)

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T H E D E A T H OF MOSES: (DER TOD MOSES) 204
Not one of the angels
(Keiner, der finstere nur gefallene)
H E A R T B E A T : (HERZSCHLAG) 206
Only mouths are we (Wir sind nur Mund)
To T H E B E L O V E D : ( A N D I E G E L I E B T E ) 207
Beloved, we who seem destined
(Du im Voraus verlorne Geliebte)
O T E L L Us, POET: (O SAGE, DICHTER) 209
0 tell us, poet, what it is you do?
(O sage, Dichter, was tust du?)
F A L L I N G STARS: ( F A L L E N D E S T E R N E ) 210
Do you remember still the falling stars
(Weisst du noch: fallende Sterne)
To Music: ( A N DIE M U S I K ) 211
Music: breath of statues (Musik, Atem der Statuen)
S O N G : (LIED) 212
You, whom I do not tell (Du, der ichs nicht sage)
T H E LOVERS: (DIE L I E B E N D E N ) 213
See how they grow as one
(Sieh, wie sie zu einander erwachsen)
ALWAYS A G A I N : (IMMER WIEDER) 214
Always again even though we know the landscape of love
(Immer wieder, ob wir der Liebe Landschaft auch kennen)
F O R C E OF GRAVITY: (SCHWERKRAFT) 215
Centre of all gravity, you who draw your strength
(Mitte, wie du aus alien dich ziehst)
E A R L Y S P R I N G : (VORFRÜHLING) 216
Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
(Härte schwand. Auf einmal legt sich Schonung)
S P R I N G : (FRÜHLING) 217
Once more the sap begins to rise
(Schon kehrt der Saft)

46
 A U T U M N : (HERBST) 218
O tall upreaching tree
(Oh hoher Baum des Schauns)
N I G H T : (NACHT) 219
Night, o you whose countenance, dissolved
(Nacht, o du in Tiefe gelöstes Gesicht)
E X P O S E D U P O N T H E M O U N T A I N S OF T H E H E A R T : 220
(Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens)
FRUIT: (DIE FRUCHT) 221
The sap rose up out of the earth
(Das stiegzu ihr aus Erde, stieg und stieg...)
V E N U S : (STARKER S T E R N ) 222
Brilliant star, requiring not the darkness
(Starker Stern, der nicht den Beistand)
D E A T H : ( D E R TOD) 223
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize
(Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne)
T H E ROSE'S INNERNESS: 224
(DAS R O S E N - I N N E R E )
Where is to this innerness and outwardness
(Wo ist zu diesem Innen ein Aussen)
E P I T A P H : (EPITAPH) 225
Rose, o pure contradiction
(Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch)

C H R O N O L O G Y OF RILKE'S LIFE 227

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 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A N D CREDITS

" M A N CIRCLING IN SPACE" 2

Amiens Cathedral, ca. 1 2 5 0
" M A N PRAYING" 52
Ernst Barlach, wood sculpture
"SMILING ANGEL" 58
Rheims Cathedral, detail, ca. 1 2 5 5
" T H E WIDOW" 76
Ernst Barlach, wood sculpture
" M A R B L E TORSO" 90
Parthenon, British Museum, London
"MARY AND CHILD" 124
Gerard David, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
" S T E L E OF Y O U T H " 148
Parthenon, National Museum, Athens
" H E A D OF W A R M E M O R I A L " 162
Ernst Barlach, bronze, Güstrow Cathedral
" H E A D OF M A R T Y R " 190
Rheims Cathedral, ca. 1 2 5 5

49
FROM THE BOOK OF PRAYERS

(DAS S T U N D E N B U C H )

B E R L I N - 1899
 EXTINGUISH THOU M Y EYES

Extinguish Thou my eyes: I still can see Thee,

deprive my ears of sound: I still can hear Thee,
and without feet I still can come to Thee,
and without voice I still can call to Thee.

Sever my arms from me, I still will hold Thee

with all my heart as with a single hand,
arrest my heart, my brain will keep on beating,
and should Thy fire at last my brain consume,
the flowing of my blood will carry Thee.

53
 THE SEEKER

I live my life in ever widening circles,

each superseding all the previous ones.
Perhaps I never shall succeed in reaching
the final circle, but attempt I will.

I circle around God, the ancient tower,

and have been circling for a thousand years,
and still I do not know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a continuing great song?

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 DEDICATION

I have great faith in all things not yet spoken.

I want my deepest pious feelings freed.
What no one yet has dared to risk and warrant
will be for me a challenge I must meet.

If this presumptuous seems, God, may I be forgiven.

For what I want to say to you is this:
my efforts shall be like a driving force,
quite without anger, without timidness
as little children show their love for you.

With these outflowings, river-like, with deltas

that spread like arms to reach the open sea,
with the recurrent tides that never cease
will I acknowledge you, will I proclaim you
as no one ever has before.

A n d if this should be arrogance, so let me

arrogant be to justify my prayer
that stands so serious and so alone
before your forehead, circled by the clouds.

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O L O R D , G R A N T E V E R Y O N E HIS S O V E R E I G N D E A T H

Lord, grant everyone his sovereign death,

a dying that extinguishes a life
which gave h i m love, significance and dearth.

For we are but the sheltering husk and leaf.

The great Death which each harbors i n himself,
that is the Fruit round which all else resolves.

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