R A I N E R M A R I A R I L K E (1875-1926)
Sonnet to Orpheus XIV
We walk past blossom, leaf, fruit-laden tree.
They speak a speech that isn't just the year’s.
Up from the darkness something bright appears
betraying perhaps a glint of jealousy
that marks the dead who strengthen all the earth.
What do we know about their ancient home?
Their loosened marrow marries with the loam
to seed it with their elemental worth.
And do they love what time affords?…
To toil oppressed like slaves to force this fruit
englobed to us above, their overlords?
Are they the lords, who sleep there at the root
and grant their excess power to us in this:
this middle thing, half mute strength and half kiss?
Translated by Jan Schreiber
Sonnet to Orpheus XIV
We walk past blossom, leaf, fruit-laden tree.
They speak a speech that isn't just the year’s.
Up from the darkness something bright appears
betraying perhaps a glint of jealousy
that marks the dead who strengthen all the earth.
What do we know about their ancient home?
Their loosened marrow marries with the loam
to seed it with their elemental worth.
And do they love what time affords?…
To toil oppressed like slaves to force this fruit
englobed to us above, their overlords?
Are they the lords, who sleep there at the root
and grant their excess power to us in this:
this middle thing, half mute strength and half kiss?
Translated by Jan Schreiber
Archaic Torso of Apollo
We never knew his unimagined head
in which the eyes were apples ripening,
and yet his torso radiates a ring
of light as if a now-dimmed streetlamp shed
a constant glow. How else could the convex
curve of his breast dazzle, and the soft turn
of loins become a smile you might discern
reaching that center that once bore his sex?
And how else could this stone, disfigured, scant
beneath the shoulders’ smooth translucent slant,
still flicker like a momentary trace
of wolf’s fur, burst its boundaries like the knife-
beams of a star? No, there is not a place
that doesn’t see you. You must change your life.
Translated by Jan Schreiber
We never knew his unimagined head
in which the eyes were apples ripening,
and yet his torso radiates a ring
of light as if a now-dimmed streetlamp shed
a constant glow. How else could the convex
curve of his breast dazzle, and the soft turn
of loins become a smile you might discern
reaching that center that once bore his sex?
And how else could this stone, disfigured, scant
beneath the shoulders’ smooth translucent slant,
still flicker like a momentary trace
of wolf’s fur, burst its boundaries like the knife-
beams of a star? No, there is not a place
that doesn’t see you. You must change your life.
Translated by Jan Schreiber