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More poems by Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria Rilke | Print this page.Print | Order a PoetryNotes Analysis of this poem.Analysis | View and Write CommentsComments

The Sonnets To Orpheus: XXV

Rainer Maria Rilke

But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose
   name
I didn't know, you who so early were taken away:
I will once more call up your image and show it to them,
beautiful companion of the unsubduable cry.

Dancer whose body filled with your hesitant fate,
pausing, as though your young flesh had been cast in bronze;
grieving and listening--. Then, from the high dominions,
unearthly music fell into your altered heart.

Already possessed by shadows, with illness near,
your blood flowed darkly; yet, though for a moment
   suspicious,
it burst out into the natural pulses of spring.

Again and again interrupted by downfall and darkness,
earthly, it gleamed. Till, after a terrible pounding,
it entered the inconsolably open door.


Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Added: 2 Mar 2002 | Last Read: 7 Sep 2008 7:57 AM | Viewed: 2001 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3295/ | Viewed on 7 September 2008.
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