Rilke at Nineteen

Wandelt sich rasch auch die Welt
wie Wolkengestalten,
alles Vollendete fällt
heim zum Uralten.
Über dem Wandel und Gang,
weiter und freier,
währt noch dein Vor-Gesang,
Gott mit der Leier.
Nicht sind die Leiden erkannt,
nicht is die Liebe gelernt,
und was im Tod uns entfernt,
ist nicht entschleiert.
Einzig das Lied überm Land
heiligt und feiert.

The world reshapes itself
Like any cloud,
Whatever is completed
Returning home to its old self.
But soaring above Change and Passing.
Wider--freer---
Sounds thy prelude,
The god upon his lyre.
We do not understand pain
Nor have we learned love
And what keeps us from death
Is not revealed .
Only the Song above the grave
Sanctifies and brings joy.


(tr. Joseph Hoffmann)
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Rilke has been a victim of dynamic translation since his death. The problem of any translation is that the translator sometimes imposes meanings on words absent in the original and sometimes misses meanings deliberately in the the pursuit of euphony. Rilke was a lyric poet whose images were rooted deep in mythology, religion, and history. You have to read him from inside his head before you can choose what English equivalents are best suited to convey the total sense of a line. Here is a stab at improving on some awful renderings of a a section of Orph. sonnet XIX.