Excerpt from The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

GRAVES
1

It was to this, then, that your life was a tender prelude:
the unavowed, the absent show themselves your heart!
Instead of calling you to sunlight at the end of etudes,
we avoid your name like the name of some fear.

We avoid your name that stone proclaims its own,
for the event that confers our names on stone
weighs on the voices of those who recall
looking for their brow's consent with frantic hand.

It was to this, then, to this perfect music
that all in you consented, lover and sister.
The earth sings you; we feel the tilt of its head,
but its mouth is turned toward someplace else.


2

Again and Again, I go and I lean
before the slow life of your grave;
you have surrendered your enclosure's peace
to the periwinkle and the hawthorn.

A young summer has re-covered the marble.
So much living verdure between us!
And you offer me that pale digital
we cannot reach but from below.

We, the living, we others who still tower
too far from that future pose!
Even beds prop us up, and we don't dare
resemble you, Friend, as we fall asleep . . .



GONG

1

A scattered humming, perverted silence,
all that was around changes to a thousand noises,
leaves us and returns: the strange harmony
of infinity's tide.

We must close our eyes, renounce our mouths,
remain mute, blind and dazzled:
with space utterly shaken, what touches us
wants no more from our being than attention.

Who will suffice? The shallow ear
quickly overflows -- and, against our own,
do we not tilt, full of every sound,
the vast conch of the world's ear?


2

As if we were
melting down bronze gods
to add to them more
massive gods of gold
that shatter as they hum.
And from all those gods
departing in the flaming metals
rise ultimate and royal
sounds!



from THE VALASIAN QUATRAINS

7.

Up there, do you see alpine pastures for angels
among the dark pines?
In that strange light, almost celestial,
they seem more than far.

But in the bright valley, clear up to the crests,
what aerial treasure!
Everything that floats in the air and reflects
will enter your wine.


23.

Here the earth is surrounded
by whatever suits its role
as star; tenderly humiliated,
it bears its aureole.

When one look is launched: such flight
through these pure distances;
to take its measurements
you need the voice of nightingales.


24.

Once again the hour's turning silver,
mingled with soft evening, the pure metal,
and it couples slow returns of musical
calm with a slower beauty.

The ancient earth recovers, changes:
a pure star survives our labor.
Leaving day, scattered noises re-arrange
themselves and re-enter the voice of waters.


37. Valaisian Sky

Even as it thrills,
how our heart depends
on a whole distant sky
to offer stable counsel.

But this sky has always been
accustomed to our cries;
the friend of this rough earth
whose contours it tempers.




DOUBTS

Tender nature, happy nature, where so many
desires seek and intersect each other,
indifferent, and yet still the basis
of consents,

overflowing nature where what exalts itself
too soon lacerates and destroys itself,
where from the rivalry of the delicious and the worst
is born some semblance of repose,

nature, killer by excess, creator,
always ecstatic,
that rekindles and consumes evil
on the same brazier:

Tell me, silencer, O tell me, am I
like an instant of your fruits?
Am I part of your dizzying abyss
where your nights hurl themselves?

Am I in harmony with your ineffable designs?
Will I become a shout of your revolts?
I, who was bread, have I fallen from the table,
a lost crumb turning hard?



SPRINGTIME

Let's start again, says the Earth, start again,
it's my only chance.
And suddenly springtime cries out:
We're starting up again.

And everywhere action and activity,
such obedience.
And the heart we'd want to restrain starts
up again with one leap.

But the obedient Earth well knows
that she moves round and round,
whereas we hurtle down
toward infinity.



THE MIGRATION OF POWERS

Often a mask empties itself before believers
and suddenly the idol apologizes
for its deceitful throne, for its fantastic pomp,
for its shrill and common gold.

Some of our gods become exhausted and withered,
arid and stiff;
into others, while murmuring, tumbles the fresh spring
of a refreshed divinity.

English language translation copyright 1986 by A. Poulin, Jr. All rights reserved.