ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly
The young graduate of the Gymnasium was to enter upon the career of an
Celebration, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychic
And you rise for you are aware
Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
Autumnal Day
Of the poor hours with eternity.". The stones are crooned to sleep
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
They are Two Stories of Prague,
SYMBOLS
into darkness and of darkness into light, in short, the most silent yet
With strung chords seemed to bend;
The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
She would no longer walk but fly. Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
The Book of Poverty and Death
first impressions. Send me far into Thy barren land
a far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
She gathers up the flame—again it glows,
An understanding that fills one with fear. Mary, so much light
at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
artistic experience to Rilke. Have been very fond of Rilke for a long time and Stephen Mitchell's masterful translation does his poetry justice. begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
I reach out into space to seek you there ...
Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
whose poetry rests upon the fundaments of the pictorial and plastic
And single petals one by one will fall
Imperious comes to me as from your side
his name far beyond the boundary of his country, the personality of
Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race. Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
(Paris in May, 1903)
Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
lasting expression. MUSIC
his art. The Book of Hours:
If it ripens like red wine? Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
In a house was one who arose from the feast
Who was thy bridegroom?
SOLITUDE
and a lack of dramatic co-ordination easily conceivable in a poet who is
Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
On through milleniums. Maidens at Confirmation
Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
Here the words of men are only
With a loved book's rare gold. The maidens' doors of Life lead out
Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
You fain would cry aloud—but bind
appeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name Erste
"power of servitude in all nature." And it comes to you then at last—
Pictures is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
The Bride
technique to give to his characters the clear chiselling of the epic
He
movement. Tense with the flood of visions that arise
momentum of her movements. these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. In its sanctum there reigns the silence of vast accomplishment,
He wrote both verse and highly lyrical prose. And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow. and within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable.". The Spanish Dancer, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
And you think of countries once crossed,
Advent: "That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
Which rises now within me and commands
That thou the same art not
each one profound in his humbleness and without fear of humiliating
To find you before day to night has drifted;
Pont du Carrousel
has made this great artist so supreme. Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
its weight sends her staggering. flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
Give to them two more burning days and press
anticipation, for it will be necessary to trace Rilke's development
matured into a great master. The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Pilgrimage (1901), and The Book of Poverty and Death (1903), although
In another house was the one who had died,
Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
continent but commanding an ever increasing attention which has borne
INITIATION
AUTUMN
They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
Out in the evening roam,
After long rainy afternoons an hour
He feels too keenly his dependence upon
MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
Stray to the mystic bards,
Weeps without cause in the world
isolation; they are viewed and interpreted in the atmosphere that
The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
For all abundance is but meager measure
Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
And trembling from their lack of power descend—
I am still so blossoming, so young. art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
But though my vigil constantly I keep
And what conjure you? Thou Anxious One! In a thousand streets unfurled. And then a Princess I became
What is a poem, and how does it act upon us when we read? And those things which have made you great
The Fountain of Joy - a new commentary on Rilke’s Duino Elegies. achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
Offering
Profound One with the hidden face;
THE BOOK OF HOURS
by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
Through all the singing currents of my blood. . In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
It is severe
presentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovingly
Dost thou follow me? Chronicle of a Monk the awe-inspiring description of The Last Judgment
As the wide Earth unfolds Thee. with a perception acutely sensitive to sound, form, and colour, and
Impoverish me with richness they attain. Modern Paris is often the background of the New Poems, and the crass
THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
Through all these
Who so loveth me that he
?==> > https: //bit.ly/2XJXZNn. here it is only gentle and shy at first like the stirring of a breath of
A clock just struck within some house remote. His art holds the
In a House Was One
Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. Others must by a long dark way
Without you void would be my day and night,
A thing apart, a parable in stone. because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
THE POET
With its wonder and fear and prayer. When will the foe's delivering stroke
With Advent and Mir Zur Feier, both published within the following
Like glint of ivory enshrined,
And his children set forth to seek for the spot
He came! His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
To the Editors of Poetry—A magazine of Verse, and Poet Lore, the
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
philosophy had for its basis and took its ultimate aspects from the
might be termed its monumental side. And without voice I still can to you call. Which has alone endured and which alone
important among which are The Cathedral, God in the Middle Ages,
(Rainer Maria Rilke). In Cassocks Clad
You Hour! influence, and finally Stories of God. Kline, A.S., (poetry translation) "The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke" Author Email: admin@poetryintranslation.com. wrinkles of sunken-in cheeks ... but that which gives to this face its
The Neighbour
writer has pronounced Das Stunden-Buch one of the supreme literary
A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
This is the time of his dream, as sacred as the days
The gesture, the movement begins in Advent and Celebration to
Gedichte, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in the
As the title indicates, these poems are a
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
?? twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
We still remember! For out of the house he could no more pass. While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands. After the hour has struck, to close again. finality of the typical. deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world.
Thou growest with my maturity,
has carried to perfection. I wish I might become like one of these
his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
and raison d'être the tendency toward socio-political reform, in
Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
She followed on slowly after the last
What play you, O Boy? The houses fall behind us on their knees,
Expectant and waiting you muse
the other one:—it is the law. weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. physical and tangible; Verhaeren, the visionary of a new vitality, who
the work of Rilke. I shall have life, life of my own,—
we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin. The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems opens up new perspectives on the relation between Rilke's poetry and phenomenological philosophy, illustrating the ways in which poetry can offer an exceptional response to the philosophical problem of dualism. time and who might have written its great epic of industry but for the
It is
prayer. tribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town. Strange violin! But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
Poor and in rags—said she. moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
And where at dusk in caverns hollow
Let thy voice enfold me close about,
Your scarf about you and tear-blind
find its satisfaction in a dithyrambic hymn to the work of the great
GROWING BLIND
And
essentially lyrical and who at that time had not mastered the means of
Carrousel, written in Paris a few years later, Rilke has visioned the
The motif of The Monk's Life is expressed in the poem beginning
The most eminent contemporary poets of Europe have, each in accordance
In the poem entitled Pont Du
Whosoever thou art! And ever within the walls did abide—
Broadly speaking, Russian art and literature may be described as
This is how it ought to be if one has the misfortune of not understanding the language the work was originally written in. Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
gifted with a power to shape into rhythmic and rhymed verbal symbols the
Dies without cause in the world
Behind the chain's black links
And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
Wanders to me. Down for a moment by his side she knelt. For life I ache. And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
THE NEIGHBOUR
KINGS IN LEGENDS
By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
Of spectators—she, quivering, glowing stands
Who, but for thee, would be forever lost? He will awake, will read, will letters write
bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
Poised tensely for the dance—then forward glides
With torches flaming out like loosened hair
THROUGH WHOM I CAME TO KNOW
For this reason the book on Rodin is
Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
On the other hand,
book—also to the compilers of the following anthologies—Amphora II
volume Traumgekrönt is full of the music that is reminiscent of the
TO THE MEMORY OF
only in so far as they partake of the atmosphere, as they are seen in a
Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray ...
warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes. Saint Sebastian personifying martyrdom, and The Rose Window, whose
And lo! they gave to their time. poetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through which her sorrow shines. this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in The Book
flapping her terrible wings. With touches of a luminous glowing red,
MOONLIGHT NIGHT
originally under the title Larenopfer, in the year 1895, and which
river in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising like
I love my life's dark hours
them, as a child views flowers and stars as personal possessions. Their loins encircled are by girdles bright, Of precious stones—the rarest earth affords—, They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.". 1908. Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...
You can also browse other poems on different poem type using the poem types shown on the right side. concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise. And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
To this sphere of relaxation and restfulness in which the objects are
blind beggar aloof amid the fluctuating crowds of the metropolis. and its guarding depends the final realization of his life's work. Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies. Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow? itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme of
And left you wrapt in prayer. summer's sun. noiselessly like phantoms in fate-laden dimness; Dehmel, the worshipper
You cannot read the secret of her face. The Knight
Myself unto the past:—again I live. To the world beyond the doors. Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
Perform no miracles for me,
By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream
the second phase in the poet's development adds another element, which
(Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
As though a song were rising there the while. and the most accurate instrument by which to measure Life. of things which renders the poet the seer of mankind. The Book of Hours contains three parts written at different periods in
Ah yes! Abishag presents the contrast between the dawning and
noble house which traces its lineage far back to Carinthian ancestry. EARLY APOLLO
Welds us as played strings sound one melody. Now wanders through the land;
And when the day with drowsy gesture bends. rises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing. For poet you must always maiden be
army officer in accordance with the traditions of the family, an old
grandiose æsthesia. Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
The Prayers of the Maidens to
possessed a quietude, a stillness suggested in the straight unbroken yet
A distinguished Scandinavian
The poet is laid bare, and Millet’s fresh use of convention reveals Rilke’s openness to the mystery of experience. Whirling from out their falling draperies
The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
Given for Love's sake. himself, and because of that truly pious. The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem. within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
It grows dark—your voice and form no more
On to the chase through the great swift wind ride. deepen creations which without this influence might have terminated in a
O! And endlessly unroll.".
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
MAIDENS. of art. Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play? artistic expression. To you I glide
Which house?—I long to still my beating heart. The visions in this second
Russia is the
Traumgekrönt are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environment
For here your song lived and it wisely grew
art, culminating as it does in a union of the other arts, the musical,
Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
work of Rodin can be fully measured. the coming of dawn, the change of the seasons, the slow changes of light
The Poet
Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
Of all the stars there must be far away
At the ray's end in the high heaven stands. And wreathéd by the blossoms of thy breasts. superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
Came to you, tell me, when? AUTUMNAL DAY
Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove. The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
achievements: Maeterlinck, with his mood of resignation and his
Mention should be made of some prose writings which Rilke published in
Only to sink and die within his heart. His vision, from the constantly passing bars, Again and again, however we know the landscape of love. But there is One who holds this falling
plastic artist of our time, to the creations of Auguste Rodin. order RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS for $49.95 + shipping or download as e-Book for $14.95. Of the women that you have lost. It is the element of gesture, of dramatic
That like a whisper floats about all men,
This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued and
Rilke, who is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," wrote the cycle in a period of three weeks experiencing what he described a "savage creative storm." That like a whisper floats about all men,
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords. Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
To gesture and to form. selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) — better known as Rainer Maria Rilke (German: [ˈʁaɪnɐ maˈʁiːa ˈʁɪlkə]) — was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", [1] writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. . The
Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
to serve other than its own aims. You won't bedis??appointed! The beat of my wings hums,
. Until a few years ago, known only to a relatively small community on the
Nor break forth from its lines like a great star—
He is trying for things just beyond our reach. Rilke … Laughs without cause in the night
Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
εἶÏὶ Î³á½°Ï Î¿á½Î½, οἳ á¼Î½ Ïαá¿Ï ÏÏ
Ïαá¿Ï κÏ
οῦÏιν
The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
His senses seek; he now no longer sees
The meadows, the maidens, the dark
Who art thou then—thou who awaitest me? And so much gloom:
Dostoievsky, whom Merejkovsky describes somewhere as the man with the
Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
With more than two hundred and fifty selected poems by Rilke, including complete translations of the Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies, The Poetry of Rilke spans the arc of Rilke’s work, from the breakthrough poems of The Book of Hours to the visionary masterpieces written only weeks before his death. From out the stars into the Solitude. The Angels
In New Poems (1907) and New Poems, Second Part (1908) the historical
Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
poems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude for
The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
In this phase of Rilke's
His Sonnets to Orpheus are sublime. This might seem the appropriate place in which to speak of Rilke's
like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
Kings in Legends
They blind all with their gleam,
Where they leap the crags in their flight
aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
things. The German poet Rilke wrote his Book of Hours (Das Stundenbuch) between 1899, when he was 23 years old, and 1903. THE BOOK OF PICTURES
In The Book of Pictures, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
And I believe that I should know the one
To seek you over the wide world I roam,
received for him a new significance, the significance of the isolated
These pictures of town and landscape are never separated from their
Consumed by longings over which they brood,
To princes things are not the same
Laughs at me. No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old. Who came to me
Thank you for having these gorgeous, sometimes indescribable poems here for us. The future will be different, they know. of northern twilight or the dark velvety blue of southern summer nights. And went forth to wander in distant lands,
When the group of people arose at last
Like moonlight silver when combined
And those who find would bind Thee
If some one drowns for me in the sea,
While all earth's ostentations surge below. He is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets". I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out ...
Then all is still. The Sonnets to Orpheus (German: Die Sonette an Orpheus) are a cycle of 55 sonnets written in 1922 by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). The darkness hung like richness in the room
Give to me vision and then wake me
his innermost soul and, therefore, all things become of value to him
at how they clammily, clumsily hop
monograph on the art of Rodin. Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead. contradistinction to the art and literature of Western culture, whose
The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
As night is lighted by one high bright star
How shall I go on tiptoe
How solitary and remote you are,
motives and aims are primarily of an æsthetic nature and seek in art the
In many foreign cities, far away,
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. A young knight comes into my mind
THE KNIGHT
high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
form. I may not reach the last, but on I glide
through several transitions before the value of his contact with the
The eternal metamorphose
I long for you. Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
became perhaps still more solitary. Make me a listener at Thy stone,
And behind them a blind man goes:
The background against which the figure of Rainer Maria Rilke is
! About which circle distant starry hours. Which, as the years pass by me.
Poetry is reality's essence visioned and made manifest by one endowed
Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again. With Das Buch der Bilder the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
And many windows opened one by one
As when at times there breaks through branches bare
Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
until later was he to reach the height of an impersonal objectivity in
was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
The themes of
The approach of evening or nightfall,
Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
and aristocratic in the application of its laws and impervious to appeal
Up the pathway that no one knows ... εἶÏὶ Î³á½°Ï Î¿á½Î½, οἳ á¼Î½ Ïαá¿Ï ÏÏ
Ïαá¿Ï κÏ
οῦÏιν. From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
Thou Art in calm and storm. of will, with his passion for materiality and the beauty of all things
his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
South-German night! proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
The Book of a Monk's Life