The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (38 page)

BOOK: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
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Rilke’s note: “To Vera.”

II, 29
(Muzot, February 19/23, 1922)

Rilke’s note: “To a friend of Vera’s.”

l. 3,
like a bell:

With this bell tower the little island, in all its fervor, is attached to the past; the tower fixes the dates and dissolves them again, because ever since it was built it has been ringing out time and destiny over the lake, as though it included in itself the visibility of all the lives that have been surrendered here; as though again and again it were sending their transitoriness into space, invisibly, in the sonorous transformations of its notes.

(To Countess Aline Dietrichstein, June 26, 1917)

l. 4,
What feeds upon your face:

O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum uns am Angesicht zehrt— …

Oh and the night, the night, when the wind full of cosmic space feeds upon our face
—…

(First Elegy, ll. 18 f.)

Erkennst du mich, Luft, du, voll noch einst meiniger Orte?

Do you recognize me, Air, still full of places once mine?

(Sonnets to Orpheus II, 1, l. 12)

l. 10,
in their magic ring:

[The poet’s] is a naive, aeolian soul, which is not ashamed to dwell where the senses intersect [
sich kreuzen
], and which lacks nothing, because these unfolded senses form a ring in which there are no gaps …

(“The Books of a Woman in Love,” 1907, SW 6, 1018)

UNCOLLECTED POEMS, 1923–1926

Imaginary Career
(Schöneck, September 15, 1923)

[As once the wingèd energy of delight]
(Muzot, mid-February 1924)

[What birds plunge through is not the intimate space]
(Muzot, June 16, 1924)

Duration of Childhood
(Ragaz, July 4 or 5, 1924)

Dedication,
E.M.:
Erika Mitterer. In May 1924, at the age of eighteen, she had sent Rilke two poems, initiating an extensive correspondence in verse, from which this poem and “Dove that ventured outside” are taken.

[World was in the face of the beloved]
(Ragaz, mid-July 1924)

Palm
(Muzot, around October 1, 1924)

Gravity
(Muzot, October 5, 1924)

This “taking life heavily” that my books are filled with … means nothing (don’t you agree?) but a taking according to true weight, and thus according to truth: an attempt to weigh Things by the carat of the heart, instead of by suspicion, happiness, or chance.

(To Rudolf Bodländer, March 13, 1922)

He who is solitary … can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see animals, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and increasing and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery—which the world is filled with, even in its smallest Things—, could bear it, endure it, more solemnly, feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of taking it lightly. If only they could be more reverent toward their own fruitfulness, which is essentially
one
, whether it is manifested as mental or physical …

(To Franz Xaver Kappus, July 16, 1903)

Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit …

(Ibid., May 14, 1904)

O Lacrimosa
(Paris, May or June 1925)

O Lacrimosa:
“O tearful [woman].” The epithet usually refers to Mary lamenting for Jesus at the foot of the cross.

Ernst Křenek
(1900–1991): Austrian composer. His setting for this poem, for “high voice” with piano accompaniment, was published in 1926 as his opus 48.

You know that, in general, all attempts to surprise my verses with music have been unpleasant for me, since they are unrequested additions to something already complete in itself. It has rarely happened that I have written verses which seemed either suited for, or in need of, stirring up the musical element, out of a mutual center. With the little trilogy “O Lacrimosa” (which would like to pretend an imaginary Italian origin, in order to be still more anonymous than it already is—) something remarkable happened to me: this poem arose
for music
—, and then came the wish that sometime (sooner or later) it might be
your
music in which these impulses could find their fulfillment and their permanence.

(To Ernst Křenek, November 5, 1925)

[Now it is time that gods came walking out]
(Muzot, mid-October 1925)

[Rose, oh pure contradiction]
(In the testament of October 27, 1925)

At Rilke’s request, these lines were carved on his gravestone in the churchyard of Raron.

Idol
(First line: Paris, summer 1925; completed: Muzot, November, 1925)

Gong
(Muzot, November 1925)

[Four Sketches]
(Muzot, December 8, 1925)

The “little notebook with four prose-pieces” was sent to Monique Briod on December 10.

l. 8,
Rustic Chapel:
The small St. Anne chapel next to Muzot.

 … the abandoned rustic chapel which I take care of; because of its decrepitude, no mass is read in it any longer, and so it is now given back to all the gods and is always filled with open simple homage.

(To Clara Rilke, April 23, 1923)

l. 17,
“Farfallettina”:
Little butterfly.

l. 26,
bilboquet:
A wooden toy, consisting of a cord with a ball on one end and a stick on the other; the object of the game is to catch the ball on the spike-end of the stick.

Elegy
(Muzot, June 8, 1926)

Dedication,
Marina Tsvetayeva
(1892–1941): One of the great modern Russian poets. She and Rilke never met in person, but they exchanged a number of
intense letters during the spring and summer of 1926. Her long elegy, “Novo-godnee” (“For the New Year”), written early in 1927, describes the impact of Rilke’s death on her.

l. 18,
Kom Ombo:
Probably a stop on Rilke’s trip to Egypt in 1911.

l. 20,
marks as a signal on the doors:
Cf. Exodus 12:7, 13.

[Dove that ventured outside]
(Ragaz, August 24, 1926)

Written to Erika Mitterer after she had undergone a serious operation.

That a person who through the horrible obstructions of those years had felt himself split to the very depths of his soul, into a Once and an irreconcilable, dying Now: that such a person should experience the grace of perceiving how in yet more mysterious depths, beneath this torn-open split, the continuity of his work and of his spirit was being re-established—this seems to me more than just a private event. For with it, a measure is given for the inexhaustible stratification of our nature; and many people who, for one reason or another, believe that they have been torn apart, might draw special comfort from this example of continuability. (The thought occurs to me that this comfort too may somehow have entered into the achievement of the great Elegies, so that they express themselves more completely than they could have done without endangerment and rescue.)

(To Arthur Fischer-Colbrie, December 18, 1925)

AFTERWORD

R.M.R. in memoriam

You honored what is heaviest. You knew

the pull of earth; and you were pulled apart

by the dark angel’s voice that seemed as though

it called from somewhere outside your own heart.

You chose the tao of suffering, which led

past every common joy, past the humane

fulfillments, and delivered you instead

to cancer, in a Nessus’-shirt of pain.

Now, breathless, weightless, you can only fall

into yourself: the invisible, unheard

center that you sang. Ahead of all

parting, you might lean back against your chair

and see a sun-lit garden path. A bird

might whistle through you, in the cool morning air.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Michael André Bernstein, Chana Bloch, Jonathan Galassi (my editor), W. S. Merwin, and Robert Pinsky for their many valuable comments. A letter from Ralph Freedman persuaded me to include the two sections of early poems. I had help with the German of several of the uncollected poems from Jutta Hahne, and with the French prose-poems from my brother, to whom this book is dedicated, with love.

During the months when I was studying the Elegies, I lived in close daily contact with Jacob Steiner’s great line-by-line commentary,
Rilkes Duineser Elegien
(Bern/München: Francke Verlag, 1962), and found it an almost never-failing source of illumination.

Finally, I must acknowledge my debt to the work of J. B. Leishman, M. D. Herter Norton, and C. F. MacIntyre, and to the Young, Boney, Guerne, and Gaspar versions of the
Elegies
, the Poulin
Elegies and Sonnets
, the Betz
Cahiers de M. L. Brigge
, and miscellaneous translations by Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Robert Bly, W. D. Snodgrass, and Rika Lesser.

And my greatest debt: to Vicki.

INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
(English)

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place

A god can do it. But will you tell me how

A tree ascended there. Oh pure transcendence!

Ah, poems amount to so little

Ah, Women, that you should be moving

Alcestis

All this stood upon her and was the world

And it was almost a girl who, stepping from

And night and distant rumbling; now the army’s

Antistrophes

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Ariel

As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white

As once the wingèd energy of delight

At first a childhood, limitless and free

Autumn Day

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were

Before Summer Rain

[Bird-feeders, The]

Black Cat

Blindman’s Song, the

Buddha in Glory

But tell me, who
are
they, these wanderers, even more

But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose name

Call me to the one among your moments

Center, how from all beings

Center of all centers, core of cores

Death

Dove that ventured outside

Drinking from this cup

Drunkard’s Song, The

Duration of Childhood

Dwarf's Song, The

Eighth Elegy, The

Elegy

Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words

Erect no gravestone to his memory; just

Evening

Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas

Everything is far

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there

[Faces]

[Fears]

Fifth Elegy, The

Fig-tree, for such a long time I have found meaning

First Elegy, The

Flamingos, The

For a long time he attained it in looking

[For the Sake of a Single Poem]

[Four Sketches]

Fourth Elegy, The

[Fragment of an Elegy]

From this cloud, look!, which has so wildly covered

Gazelle, The

God or goddess of the sleep of cats

Going Blind

Gong

Gravity

Grownup, The

Have I said it before?

His vision, from the constantly passing bars

How well I understand those strange pictures

I am blind, you outsiders. It is a curse

I am lying in my bed five flights up

I am, O Anxious One. Don’t you hear my voice

I don’t underestimate it

I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all

I have my dead, and I have let them go

[Ibsen]

Idiot’s Song, The

Idol

Imaginary Career

In the eyes: dream. The brow as if it could feel

Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk

It is one thing to sing the beloved. Another, alas

It wasn’t in me. It went out and in

It would be difficult to persuade me

Lament (Everything is far)

Lament (Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely)

Last Evening, The

Long afternoons of childhood.…, not yet really

Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps

My soul itself may be straight and good

Ninth Elegy, The

No longer for ears … : sound

Not wooing, no longer shall wooing, voice that has outgrown it

Now it is time that gods came walking out

Now shall I praise the cities, those long-surviving

O Lacrimosa

O trees of life, when does your winter come?

Often I gazed at you in wonder: stood at the window begun

Oh come and go. You, almost still a child

Oh tear-filled figure who, like a sky held back

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