Latest quotes | Random quotes | Vote! | Latest comments | Submit quote

Rilke's First Duino Elegy, rewritten for Roxana Dyer

The First Duino Elegy of Rilke
Rewritten for Roxana Dyer

Who, if I screamed,
from the ranks of the angels would hear me then?
Even imagine one took me suddenly in his arms:
who I am would be lost in his greater Being.
So beauty was nothing
but the beginning of nightmare, from which we will scarcely awake;
we marvel at beauty, because in the end it has never bothered
to destroy us. Every angel message first brings us terror.

So with strong restraint I choke back the temptation
of agonized sobbing. Oh who then to turn to
in need? Not angels, not people,
and the animals hearing my pulse knew already
that I was not really settled
in this world we have named without knowledge.

Perhaps there waits for me a pohutukawa on a hillside,
that I can look at over and over; a country road from yesterday;
the unreasoning certainty of a childhood habit
that pleased me and stayed without interruption
in foreign lands.

Oh and the night, the night, when the wind screams from nowhere,
scratching us in the face...
For whom does She not wait, the desired and gently deceiving,
who stands disturbing before the solitary heart?
Is She kinder to the lovers in bed?
Oh they embrace, but only to hide all they have lost.
Still don't you see?
Throw open your arms that the emptiness
may pass out again into the spaces that we breathe.
Perhaps the air will seem further away to the birds
as they fly along paths the genes remember.

Oh yeah? you mean Spring came only for you;
the stars waited till you noticed them;
a wave rose in the past for you; a violin,
as you walked past a window, rang out for you.
That was all because of you?
But were you strong enough to bear it?
Weren't you always still driven crazy
by waiting, as if every moment would bring you news
of her loss? (Where will you hide her grey eyes,
as the huge new thought strangers go in and out
of your mind, and often stay the night?)

You feel longing, so sing more songs of the lovers

[...] Read more

poem by Report problemRelated quotes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Share
 
 
This text contains a mistake
This text is duplicate
The author of this text is another person
Another problem

More info, if necessary

Your name

Your e-mail

Search


Recent searches | Top searches