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Fifty Poems
Fresh, beautiful new translations of one of the most important poets of all time, publishing in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke's birth.
Rilke is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, revered throughout the world. Geoffrey Lehmann has selected fifty of Rilke’s finest poems from the two volumes, entitled New Poems, that are the center of gravity of his achievement. Lehmann’s refined ear and perfect mastery of English verse form give his renderings of Rilke a precision and poise that are equal to that of the German originals. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Rilke’s death a master poet lives anew.
Rilke is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, revered throughout the world. Geoffrey Lehmann has selected fifty of Rilke’s finest poems from the two volumes, entitled New Poems, that are the center of gravity of his achievement. Lehmann’s refined ear and perfect mastery of English verse form give his renderings of Rilke a precision and poise that are equal to that of the German originals. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Rilke’s death a master poet lives anew.
- GenresPoetry
128 pages, Paperback
Published October 7, 2025
About the author
Rainer Maria Rilke
1,903 books7,208 followersA mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include
The Book of Hours
(1905) and
The Duino Elegies
(1923).
People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.
His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.
His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .
He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.
People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.
His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.
His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .
He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
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March 4, 2026The lines are short and the pages are spare but the intensity of everything Rilke offers with his work is seriously incredible. So much movement and vivacity in everything—he animates the dull and imbues the already human with so much energy and life!! I didn't know to expect this kind of simple (but effective) force. I do understand why he's so highly regarded, even though i'm still not entirely sold on poetry... its usually too ephemeral to hold the weight of my attention for very long
Plus every word matters too much and i'm not used to that kind of saliency........
Plus every word matters too much and i'm not used to that kind of saliency........
March 28, 2026
Wonderful, wonderful poems marked by elegiac compression.
Art and poetry, for Rilke, have a sacramental quality: “There is no place / that does not see you. You must change your life.” The moral force of these poems makes them worth reading.
Favorite stanza, from Portrait of My Father as a Youth
Your daguerreotype fading fast
in my more slowly fading hands.
Favorite poem, The Apple Orchard
Come with me when the sun has just set,
watch the grass in the green afterglow;
is it not something known long ago,
and stored away to be with us yet,
so now from memories left behind,
feelings and hopes we scarcely admit,
coming from a dark place in the mind,
in thought before us we scatter it
under trees etched by Dürer, which bear
the weight of a hundred working days
in a surfeit of fruit in mild air,
patient, serving, seeking to amaze
with the mass of their crop, their excess:
yet toiling to give is all they know,
and willing through a long life of stress
for this one thing, silently to grow.
Art and poetry, for Rilke, have a sacramental quality: “There is no place / that does not see you. You must change your life.” The moral force of these poems makes them worth reading.
Favorite stanza, from Portrait of My Father as a Youth
Your daguerreotype fading fast
in my more slowly fading hands.
Favorite poem, The Apple Orchard
Come with me when the sun has just set,
watch the grass in the green afterglow;
is it not something known long ago,
and stored away to be with us yet,
so now from memories left behind,
feelings and hopes we scarcely admit,
coming from a dark place in the mind,
in thought before us we scatter it
under trees etched by Dürer, which bear
the weight of a hundred working days
in a surfeit of fruit in mild air,
patient, serving, seeking to amaze
with the mass of their crop, their excess:
yet toiling to give is all they know,
and willing through a long life of stress
for this one thing, silently to grow.
Read
September 14, 2025“The poet,” William Gass writes in Reading Rilke, “never forgets a metaphor.” And he’s right; he doesn’t. Open to a random page of R. and you’re liable to see a piano player’s “hand, heavy with its jeweled ring, and slow / as though trudging through drifts of snow / travel across the ivory keys.” Some birdcall ringing through a faded wood? It makes “a sound as round and wide as the sky.”
That isn’t just Rilke, though. It’s Rilke as translated by Australian poet Geoffrey Lehmann, whose English renditions fill out Fifty Poems like subtle clones of the originals. Unlike most translations of Rilke’s work, Lehmann’s versions refuse to dispense with the rhymes that Rilke (prior to the Duino Elegies) found so indispensable. There isn’t a poem among these that doesn’t rhyme—not an easy feat for either author, neither German nor English being languages readily disposed to rhyming. But wait; there’s more: Lehmann also mirrors the number of syllables in the master’s lines.
Read the rest, here! - https://ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/09/1...
That isn’t just Rilke, though. It’s Rilke as translated by Australian poet Geoffrey Lehmann, whose English renditions fill out Fifty Poems like subtle clones of the originals. Unlike most translations of Rilke’s work, Lehmann’s versions refuse to dispense with the rhymes that Rilke (prior to the Duino Elegies) found so indispensable. There isn’t a poem among these that doesn’t rhyme—not an easy feat for either author, neither German nor English being languages readily disposed to rhyming. But wait; there’s more: Lehmann also mirrors the number of syllables in the master’s lines.
Read the rest, here! - https://ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/09/1...
May 28, 2026
Fascinating collection. I grow more and more fond of poetry the older I get. Fundamentally any art form pointlessly pursues portrayals of the real world and no art fully succeeds. Yet a good poem seems to succeed a little more than regular language.
In the afterword, Lehmann kindly allows the reader to step into his thought process when translating Rilke into English. The expertise! I might have enjoyed reading this bit more than all of the poems combined.
In the afterword, Lehmann kindly allows the reader to step into his thought process when translating Rilke into English. The expertise! I might have enjoyed reading this bit more than all of the poems combined.
February 1, 2026
This was a translation of 50 of Rilke’s New Poems: short, metrical, lyrical poems, mostly about things. Sadly, I don’t speak German, so am bound to translations. That being said, Lehmann’s translations were excellent, maintaining the musical quality of the original rhyme and meter. I can’t say how they compare to the original, but to my taste, they were lovely forgeries.
Enough so to pique my interest in lyric poetry—though it’s unfortunate my understanding amounts to something akin to looking at art through foggy glass. The best remedy will be more poems.
Enough so to pique my interest in lyric poetry—though it’s unfortunate my understanding amounts to something akin to looking at art through foggy glass. The best remedy will be more poems.
October 16, 2025
Hmmmmmm, reading more poetry has made me more comfortable with reading poetry. Who would have thought?
Surprisingly, I was entirely engrossed in this collection of poems. Poetry is not usually a genre that really pushes all of my boundaries, but with William Carlos Williams's Spring and All, and now with this collection of Rilke's poems, I've started to come around.
I would recommend this to anyone interesting in reading very vibrant, thoughtful, metered, and compelling poetry.
Surprisingly, I was entirely engrossed in this collection of poems. Poetry is not usually a genre that really pushes all of my boundaries, but with William Carlos Williams's Spring and All, and now with this collection of Rilke's poems, I've started to come around.
I would recommend this to anyone interesting in reading very vibrant, thoughtful, metered, and compelling poetry.
Read
February 20, 2026love it when the translation is right next to the original. these are beautiful, but still don't think I'm really a poetry gal? will try again in a few months and see
October 6, 2025
Fifty Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
2025 is the year I've dipped my toes back into reading poetry, and I think I've found a clear "winner" or "beacon" as to the type of poetry I want to read. When this little pocket book arrived, I had the idea of reading three poems a day, which didn't happen; instead, I devoured it in two days.
Although technically this isn't my first time with Rilke, as I read Letters to a Young Poet years ago, this is my first time reading his poetry. Even though I remember enjoying Letters, as the jaded and yet severely naive artist I was trying to be, the work never truly clicked, how ironic. However, this return to Rilke was spurred on by the author William H. Gass discussing this work and Rilke's influence on his own prose. After reading this work, I can see where Gass has pulled from.
Even though I'm still lacking in the particular vocabulary to describe and discuss poetry (maybe that's the point, or I never will), these poems were completely arresting. They are a swarm of empathy, exposing and exploring the universality of existence in a beautiful and simple way. As I worked through the material, I made sure to reread entire poems or certain stanzas to really get inside the words, and I did have the urge to read aloud.
Perhaps it's the change of season or this strange early Indian Summer we're having in Ontario, but these poems really struck something within me, and it's a feeling I'll be trying to track down with other works of poetry in the future.
2025 is the year I've dipped my toes back into reading poetry, and I think I've found a clear "winner" or "beacon" as to the type of poetry I want to read. When this little pocket book arrived, I had the idea of reading three poems a day, which didn't happen; instead, I devoured it in two days.
Although technically this isn't my first time with Rilke, as I read Letters to a Young Poet years ago, this is my first time reading his poetry. Even though I remember enjoying Letters, as the jaded and yet severely naive artist I was trying to be, the work never truly clicked, how ironic. However, this return to Rilke was spurred on by the author William H. Gass discussing this work and Rilke's influence on his own prose. After reading this work, I can see where Gass has pulled from.
Even though I'm still lacking in the particular vocabulary to describe and discuss poetry (maybe that's the point, or I never will), these poems were completely arresting. They are a swarm of empathy, exposing and exploring the universality of existence in a beautiful and simple way. As I worked through the material, I made sure to reread entire poems or certain stanzas to really get inside the words, and I did have the urge to read aloud.
Perhaps it's the change of season or this strange early Indian Summer we're having in Ontario, but these poems really struck something within me, and it's a feeling I'll be trying to track down with other works of poetry in the future.
Read
June 23, 2026Could quote just about every poem from this collection, almost every one reverberates beyond itself, perpetually becoming, but here are a few I especially liked:
Entrance:
This you must do: in the evening light
leave your small room, all you once knew,
and step into the glimmering edge of night:
this you must do.
Your house the last to go, you can be free:
lift your tired eyes and let them see
against the sky a solitary black tree,
a silent universe, immense.
Your mind watches a world grow.
You want this to be all you know.
You will it to make sense,
then your eyes tenderly let it go…
from The Last Supper:
He asked them, knowing he will soon be dead,
to this last meal. As birds fly up with dread,
hearing a shot, their hands shrink from the bread
and the twelve startle at his prophecy,
fluttering around the table in despair,
and scatter, seeking an escape. But he
like twilight arriving is everywhere.
Apprehension:
In the faded wood there is a birdcall.
The birdcall seems to make no sense at all,
yet lingers in the faded wood,
a sound as round and wide as the sky.
All things fit easily inside the cry.
Mutely the landscape seems to lie in it,
the great wind seems to nestle in it,
and the impatiently ticking minute
stops and goes pale, as though it knows
things that would have us die, and rose
out of the cry.
Piano Practice:
The drone of summer. Afternoon lassitude.
A trifle confused she fluffs her crisp dress,
and playing through the peremptory etude
there’s an impatience that she wants to express.
Tomorrow it may come, even tonight—,
something real. Perhaps it’s just hiding there.
Suddenly the tall windows and their light
from the manicured park make her aware.
She breaks off; folds her hands, a cursory look
outside. That would calm her down, a long book.
She’s fighting against an atmosphere thick
with the smell of jasmine. It makes her feel sick.
The Apple Orchard:
Come with me when the sun has just set,
watch the grass in the green afterglow;
is it not something known long ago,
and stored away to be with us yet,
so now from memories left behind,
feelings and hopes we scarcely admit,
coming from a dark place in the mind,
in thought before us we scatter it
under trees etched by Dürer, which bear
the weight of a hundred working days
in a surfeit of fruit in mild air,
patient, serving, seeking to amaze
with the mass of their crop, their excess:
yet toiling to give is all they know,
and willing through a long life of stress
for this one thing, silently to grow.
Komm du:
Come my last visitor. I know your name,
excruciating pain in every cell.
As I once burned in spirit, see how this flame
you’ve lit has made my body a cruel hell.
For a long time my wood resisted you.
But now my native mildness, fierce and sheer,
feeds you and burns, a fury blazing through
me, an inferno which is not from here.
Certain and free of any plans to buy
myself time, I climbed this chaotic pyre,
my heart silenced in this purposeless fire,
a person with no future, a bare I.
But is it I, burning here all alone
nameless and faceless, memory denied?
O life: to live, to be outside.
I am on fire. Someone who is unknown.
Entrance:
This you must do: in the evening light
leave your small room, all you once knew,
and step into the glimmering edge of night:
this you must do.
Your house the last to go, you can be free:
lift your tired eyes and let them see
against the sky a solitary black tree,
a silent universe, immense.
Your mind watches a world grow.
You want this to be all you know.
You will it to make sense,
then your eyes tenderly let it go…
from The Last Supper:
He asked them, knowing he will soon be dead,
to this last meal. As birds fly up with dread,
hearing a shot, their hands shrink from the bread
and the twelve startle at his prophecy,
fluttering around the table in despair,
and scatter, seeking an escape. But he
like twilight arriving is everywhere.
Apprehension:
In the faded wood there is a birdcall.
The birdcall seems to make no sense at all,
yet lingers in the faded wood,
a sound as round and wide as the sky.
All things fit easily inside the cry.
Mutely the landscape seems to lie in it,
the great wind seems to nestle in it,
and the impatiently ticking minute
stops and goes pale, as though it knows
things that would have us die, and rose
out of the cry.
Piano Practice:
The drone of summer. Afternoon lassitude.
A trifle confused she fluffs her crisp dress,
and playing through the peremptory etude
there’s an impatience that she wants to express.
Tomorrow it may come, even tonight—,
something real. Perhaps it’s just hiding there.
Suddenly the tall windows and their light
from the manicured park make her aware.
She breaks off; folds her hands, a cursory look
outside. That would calm her down, a long book.
She’s fighting against an atmosphere thick
with the smell of jasmine. It makes her feel sick.
The Apple Orchard:
Come with me when the sun has just set,
watch the grass in the green afterglow;
is it not something known long ago,
and stored away to be with us yet,
so now from memories left behind,
feelings and hopes we scarcely admit,
coming from a dark place in the mind,
in thought before us we scatter it
under trees etched by Dürer, which bear
the weight of a hundred working days
in a surfeit of fruit in mild air,
patient, serving, seeking to amaze
with the mass of their crop, their excess:
yet toiling to give is all they know,
and willing through a long life of stress
for this one thing, silently to grow.
Komm du:
Come my last visitor. I know your name,
excruciating pain in every cell.
As I once burned in spirit, see how this flame
you’ve lit has made my body a cruel hell.
For a long time my wood resisted you.
But now my native mildness, fierce and sheer,
feeds you and burns, a fury blazing through
me, an inferno which is not from here.
Certain and free of any plans to buy
myself time, I climbed this chaotic pyre,
my heart silenced in this purposeless fire,
a person with no future, a bare I.
But is it I, burning here all alone
nameless and faceless, memory denied?
O life: to live, to be outside.
I am on fire. Someone who is unknown.
October 29, 2025
‘To do this vainly seeking more and more, and find nothing of substance and then die alone, not understanding why-
Or does a new life open through this door?’
Rilke is one of the writers I feel a great, personal kinship with. His poetry has a pure, almost impersonal intensity to it, that is bigger than self, that encompasses all of us, and yet is so deeply personal, so sentimental. My favourite poet of all time.
Or does a new life open through this door?’
Rilke is one of the writers I feel a great, personal kinship with. His poetry has a pure, almost impersonal intensity to it, that is bigger than self, that encompasses all of us, and yet is so deeply personal, so sentimental. My favourite poet of all time.
December 22, 2025
A rather interesting collection of Rilke's poems pulling exclusively from Neue Gedichte. I suppose I would have preferred a wider collection, with some inclusions from Das Stunden-Buch, Duineser Elegien, or Sonette an Orpheus too, but that's neither here nor there. I'm a big fan that translator Geoffrey Lehmann presented the poems interlineally, and I must say his translations are very well done; Lehmann brilliantly captures the style and flow of Rilke in the English.
December 6, 2025
Entrance, the departure of the prodigal son, child in red final verses
December 15, 2025
Beautiful, uplifting... just as poetry should be.
December 31, 2025
There is no nobility in pain.
Rilke teaches us how to live.
Rilke teaches us how to live.
May 26, 2026
I’ve really enjoyed this translation of Rilke’s poetry. Just lovely.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews