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

by Rainer Maria Rilke

nothing but the beginning of terror, which

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.

joints of pure light, corridors, stairways, thrones, space formed from essence, shields made of ecstasy, storms of emotion whirled into rapture, and suddenly, alone, mirrors: which scoop up the beauty that has streamed from their face and gather it back, into themselves, entire.

Listen

to the night as it makes itself hollow.

stars, isn’t it from...

But this: that one can contain death, the whole of death, even before life has begun, can hold it to one’s heart

gently, and not refuse to go on living, is inexpressible.

Oh gather it, Angel, that small-flowered herb of healing. Create a vase and preserve it. Set it among those joys not yet open to us; on that lovely urn

like the soft night air, the temptation to blossom touches their tender mouths, touches their eyelids, softly: heroes perhaps, and those chosen to disappear early, whose veins Death the gardener twists into a different pattern.