The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition (Vintage International)

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Angels (they say) don’t know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead.

But to have been this once, completely, even if only once: to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.

XXIX Silent friend of many distances, feel how your breath enlarges all of space. Let your presence ring out like a bell into the night. What feeds upon your face grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered. Move through transformation, out and in. What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine. In this immeasurable darkness, be the power that rounds your senses in their magic ring, the sense of their mysterious encounter. And if the earthly no longer knows your name, whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing. To the flashing water say: I am.