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The Book of Images
Now substantially revised by Edward Snow, whom Denise Levertov once called "far and away Rilke's best translator," this bilingual edition of The Book of Images contains a number of the great poet's previously untranslated pieces. Also included are several of Rilke's best-loved lyrics, such as "Autumn," "Childhood," "Lament," "Evening," and "Entrance."
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1906
112 people are currently reading
3947 people want to read
About the author
Rainer Maria Rilke
1,799 books6,942 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 - 30 of 109 reviews
January 10, 2018
I would like to step out of my heart’s door
and be under the great sky.
— Rilke, “Lament”
A myriad of shades, a plethora of images, the juxtaposition of sentiments which soothe and unsettle. A miscellany of visuals and existential hues. A mélange of nuances and distinctive sounds. A sense of clarity with the scent of perplexity. The mystical and the ordinary fluctuate in harmony. Chaotic perfection takes this collection by storm. A vision. A metaphor. A book. A thousand mirrors. The book of images. Das Buch der Bilder.
The last of his line
I have no paternal house,
nor have I lost one;
my mother birthed me out
into the world.
Here I stand now in the world and go
even deeper into the world
and have my happiness and have my woe
and have each one alone.
...
This poetry collection was first published in 1902, when Rilke was twenty-six years old. The second edition, which appeared in 1906, is the one I read, translated by Edward Snow and published in 2014. A work which apparently knew how to circumvent the challenges of poetry and translation, for Rilke’s verses acquire a natural fluency by virtue of Snow’s mastery.
Requiem
…
Life is only a part… of what?
Life is only a note… in what?
Life has meaning only joined with many
receding circles of increasing space, –
life is only the dream of a dream,
but waking is elsewhere.
The variety of themes and the original approach chosen by Rilke have distinguished his writing until evanescent categories were completely gone, elevating poetry to sometimes unfathomable levels. Sacred symbols and mundane illustrations coalesce in the land of polarity. If the reader finds a way to connect with the poetic expressions Rilke used to deconstruct the world, then a memorable journey will soon begin. A journey in which the light of day emphasizes the color of a rose, and the silence of a room shape the nights that never end. The days that bring solace. The nights that beg for poetry. The days of pressure. The nights that dislike the sound of echo; the nights that long for it afterwards amidst confusion. The nights of indifference and quick replacements too despicable to confess. The nights when childhood is a distant memory, when guardian angels seem oblivious, when life is heavier than the weight of all things.*
March 28, 17
* From the poem “The Neighbor”
** Also on my blog.
February 13, 2025
This work is a beautiful book, capable of taking us on a journey that challenges our certainties about what it is (and, above all, how it is) to look at the world around us - furthermore, connecting the movement of words to the arts that we are used to calling “figurative.”
Considering that Rilke wrote The Book of Images between 1902 and 1906 (Rilke died in 1926 at the age of 51), it is worth highlighting that it is contemporary with the affirmation of cinema as a specific language—to stick with an emblematic reference, let us remember that A Trip to the Moon, by Georges Méliès, appeared in 1902.
Considering that Rilke wrote The Book of Images between 1902 and 1906 (Rilke died in 1926 at the age of 51), it is worth highlighting that it is contemporary with the affirmation of cinema as a specific language—to stick with an emblematic reference, let us remember that A Trip to the Moon, by Georges Méliès, appeared in 1902.
March 26, 2020
Strange violin, do you follow me?
In how many distant cities before this
did your lonely night speak to mine?
Do hundreds play you? Does only one?
Are there in all the great cities
those who without you would have
long since lost themselves in the rivers?
And why does it always reach me?
Why am I always the neighbor of those
who force you from fear to sing
and to say out loud: life is heavier
than the weight of all things.
Read
April 8, 2022Video review: https://youtu.be/qriiSe2oAWo
September 26, 2021
"Ouves, amada, ergo as mãos —
ouves: um rumor...
Que gesto solitário
não é espreitado por tantas coisas?
Ouves, amada, fecho as pálpebras
e também isso é rumor que vai até ti.
Ouves, amada, ergo-as de novo...
... mas por que não estás aqui?
A marca do meu mínimo movimento
fica gravada no silêncio de seda;
indestrutivelmente vinca-se a mínima emoção
na tensa cortina da distância.
À minha respiração nascem e erguem-se
os astros.
Aos meus lábios vêm beber os armoas
e reconheço os carpos
de anjos distantes.
Só a ti, em quem penso, só a ti
não te vejo."
O Silêncio
***
"Eu queria cantar para dentro de alguém,
sentar-me junto de alguém e estar aí.
Eu queria embalar-te e cantar-te mansamente
e acompanhar-te ao despertares e ao adormeceres.
Queria ser o único na casa
a saber: a noite estava fria.
E queria escutar dentro e fora
de ti, do mundo, da floresta.
Os relógios chamam-se anunciando as horas
e vê-se o fundo do tempo.
E em baixo ainda passa um estranho
e acirra um cão desconhecido.
Depois regressa o silêncio. Os meus olhos,
muito abertos, pousaram em ti;
e prendem-te docemente e libertam-te
quando algo se move na escuridão."
Para recitar antes de adormecer
***
2021 ainda não terminou e já tenho uma certeza em relação às leituras deste ano: poucos livros me fizeram sentir aquilo que o livro do Pavese e que este do Rilke me fizeram sentir. Dizer que são "sublimes" é pouco — "O Livro das Imagens" é bem mais extenso do que o "Virá a Morte e Terá os Teus Olhos", e isso implica, necessariamente, a existência de poemas que me dizem menos, mas os poemas que me tocaram são de uma beleza aterradora. Recordo-me do momento preciso em que li os dois poemas que decidi destacar aqui, recordo-me que estava em público e que comecei a sentir lágrimas a escorrerem pelo rosto, comoveram-me por conterem algo de tão leve e, ao mesmo tempo, tão denso (quase insuportável, insustentável)... e estou a falar de traduções, de versões... que belezas se ocultarão de todos aqueles que desconhecem a língua alemã, pergunto-me eu...
ouves: um rumor...
Que gesto solitário
não é espreitado por tantas coisas?
Ouves, amada, fecho as pálpebras
e também isso é rumor que vai até ti.
Ouves, amada, ergo-as de novo...
... mas por que não estás aqui?
A marca do meu mínimo movimento
fica gravada no silêncio de seda;
indestrutivelmente vinca-se a mínima emoção
na tensa cortina da distância.
À minha respiração nascem e erguem-se
os astros.
Aos meus lábios vêm beber os armoas
e reconheço os carpos
de anjos distantes.
Só a ti, em quem penso, só a ti
não te vejo."
O Silêncio
***
"Eu queria cantar para dentro de alguém,
sentar-me junto de alguém e estar aí.
Eu queria embalar-te e cantar-te mansamente
e acompanhar-te ao despertares e ao adormeceres.
Queria ser o único na casa
a saber: a noite estava fria.
E queria escutar dentro e fora
de ti, do mundo, da floresta.
Os relógios chamam-se anunciando as horas
e vê-se o fundo do tempo.
E em baixo ainda passa um estranho
e acirra um cão desconhecido.
Depois regressa o silêncio. Os meus olhos,
muito abertos, pousaram em ti;
e prendem-te docemente e libertam-te
quando algo se move na escuridão."
Para recitar antes de adormecer
***
2021 ainda não terminou e já tenho uma certeza em relação às leituras deste ano: poucos livros me fizeram sentir aquilo que o livro do Pavese e que este do Rilke me fizeram sentir. Dizer que são "sublimes" é pouco — "O Livro das Imagens" é bem mais extenso do que o "Virá a Morte e Terá os Teus Olhos", e isso implica, necessariamente, a existência de poemas que me dizem menos, mas os poemas que me tocaram são de uma beleza aterradora. Recordo-me do momento preciso em que li os dois poemas que decidi destacar aqui, recordo-me que estava em público e que comecei a sentir lágrimas a escorrerem pelo rosto, comoveram-me por conterem algo de tão leve e, ao mesmo tempo, tão denso (quase insuportável, insustentável)... e estou a falar de traduções, de versões... que belezas se ocultarão de todos aqueles que desconhecem a língua alemã, pergunto-me eu...
August 10, 2012
Most people reach for The Letters or the Duino Elegies. Now the Elegies are without a doubt Rilke's best work but the Book of Images was really the book that brought me into Rilke's world and showed me how great of a poet he is. The Duino Elegies one comes back to over a lifetime - they are epic. But the poems here are smaller in scale but they are no less effective in their lyricism, their beauty and their melancholy. "I am like a flag surrounded by distances." Lines like these are etched in immortaility.
December 23, 2022
4 stars
“You are the shadows in which I quietly slept, / and your seed devised in me each dream, - / you are the image, but I am the frame / that makes you stand in glittering relief.”
As always, Rilke makes me feel things more deeply than I usually do. Compared to other collections, this one had poems which were concerned with more objective concepts and objects. These poems weren’t as enchanting to me, yet even with these, Rilke invests such subjects with reflective and resounding interiors.
“You are the shadows in which I quietly slept, / and your seed devised in me each dream, - / you are the image, but I am the frame / that makes you stand in glittering relief.”
As always, Rilke makes me feel things more deeply than I usually do. Compared to other collections, this one had poems which were concerned with more objective concepts and objects. These poems weren’t as enchanting to me, yet even with these, Rilke invests such subjects with reflective and resounding interiors.
February 17, 2012
This is my very favourite book of poetry. It so beautiful it hurts my heart. I've bought extra copies of it and given it away.
February 1, 2025
These lyrics often cover fleeting emotions, memories, or scenes. They’re gentler and tenderer than Rilke’s later collections.
October 8, 2008
There is very little question that Rilke was the greatest German poet of the 20th century. The only question that remains is whether he was the greatest poet in any language. His brief, imaginative poems capture the essence of man in the modern period, alone, isolated, and without meaning.
Edward Snow has captured the grace and subtle imagery of Rilke in this altogether outstanding collection of poems, in large part because he is a great poet in his own right. Readers of Rilke will surely be familiar with a number of poems in this bilingual collection, such as Autumn:
"The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if the heavens distant gardens withered;
they fall with gestures that say "no."
And in the nights the heavy earth falls
From all the stars into aloneness.
We are falluing. This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.
And yet there is One who holds this falling
With infinite softness in his hands." (85).
Edward Snow has captured the grace and subtle imagery of Rilke in this altogether outstanding collection of poems, in large part because he is a great poet in his own right. Readers of Rilke will surely be familiar with a number of poems in this bilingual collection, such as Autumn:
"The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if the heavens distant gardens withered;
they fall with gestures that say "no."
And in the nights the heavy earth falls
From all the stars into aloneness.
We are falluing. This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.
And yet there is One who holds this falling
With infinite softness in his hands." (85).
June 6, 2016
[…] there are poets who learn from you
to say, what you, in your aloneness, are;
and they learn through you to live distantness,
as the evenings through the great stars
become accustomed to eternity.
to say, what you, in your aloneness, are;
and they learn through you to live distantness,
as the evenings through the great stars
become accustomed to eternity.
September 24, 2015
"DE UMA NOITE DE TEMPESTADE
A noite, agitada por crescentes tempestades,
como se torna subitamente imensa -,
como se habitualmente estivesse recolhida
nas ínfimas dobras do tempo.
Não acaba onde as estrelas tentam detê-la
nem começa no meio da floresta,
nem no meu semblante
nem na tua forma.
Os candeeiros balbuciam e não sabem:
mentimos luz?
É a noite a única realidade
desde há milhares de anos..."
A noite, agitada por crescentes tempestades,
como se torna subitamente imensa -,
como se habitualmente estivesse recolhida
nas ínfimas dobras do tempo.
Não acaba onde as estrelas tentam detê-la
nem começa no meio da floresta,
nem no meu semblante
nem na tua forma.
Os candeeiros balbuciam e não sabem:
mentimos luz?
É a noite a única realidade
desde há milhares de anos..."
June 8, 2020
Rilke is "the poet of memory, of childhood, of leave-taking and looking-back; the poet of night and its vastnesses; the poet of human separations; the poet of thresholds and silences, of landscapes charged with remoteness and expectancy; the poet -- especially -- of solitude, in its endless inflections."
"Most of Rilke's great works came into being rapidly, in short, creative bursts, but The Book of Images evolved gradually, over a seven year period." During which he "became obsessed with a poetry of sculptural 'thingness'."
"Often one has the sense of Rilke writing his way into or through a poem, finding a feeling, an image, a situation, and following it wherever it leads him, not refining out what is weakest in the finished work but leaving it impure." The technique leaves Rilke painfully exposed and the effect can be extremely moving.
"One of the pleasures of the volume can be exploring its 'secret architecture' where motifs combine and recombine" intricately.
Some of my favorite lines:
"the sky, which to our shoulders was so heavy; true, through the boughs one still saw the day, how empty it was,-- but after long, rain-filled afternoons come the golden sun-drenched newer hours."
"South German night, bathed in August moonlight, and soft as all fairytales' recurrence. The knight rides forth in jet-black steel into the rushing, turbulent world."
"What gesture of those all alone might not be eavesdropped on by many things? Listen, love, I close my eyes, and even that makes sounds to reach you. Listen, love, I open them . . . but why are you not here?"
"The imprint of my smallest motion remains visible in the silken silence"
"You are the image, but I am the frame that makes you stand in glittering relief."
"You are the beginning that gushes forth, I am the slow and fearful Amen that timidly concludes your beauty."
"O sadness without reason, O dream, O dread, O depth without ground. O ever more escaping grasp of things, O weight, O fear. O childhood, O likeness gliding off . . . To where? To where?"
"In white veils the confirmed enter deeply into the new green of the garden. They have survived their childhood, and what comes now will be something changed."
"The old solitude comes over him, which reared him for his deep action"
"Life is heavier than the weight of all things."
"But to me the far-off is full of dream."
"I have to hold it all, until I die. Since whatever I put away out into the world falls, it is as if set down upon a wave."
"Do my senses really still play too much with light? Shall my face not forever stand out as a disturbance in the world of objects? Judge by my hands: Do they not lie there like tool and things?"
"But he sits, and beneath his thoughts his broad wrists almost break, as his mind grows heavier, always heavier."
"You know that picture of the huge judgement"
"And then it begins, after the great screaming: the overwhelming terrifying silence."
"Your life is so inexpressibly your own because it is laden with so many. Can you not sometimes feel how all pasts grow light, when you've lived a while, how they gently prepare you for amazement, companion each feeling with images,-- and how whole eras seem but a sign for some lovely gesture that you raise. -- This is the crux of all that once existed: that it does not remain with all its weight, that to our being it returns instead, woven into us, deep and magical"
"And thus things trivial and hard took place, only to give you for this daily living a thousand great similes and likenesses, by which you prodigiously may grow. Past upon past has been planted in you, in order out of you, like a garden, to rise."
"Your face is so filled with gazing, because for you the world was picture and picture; welled for you that great confidence that everything is and counts. Have you forgotten how life felt back then? You were enthralled by a flower tendril"
"I alone live and suffer and make noise. Inside me there's an endless screaming, and I don't know if it's my heart or my gut that screams."
"How strangely everything behaves, drifting together, swimming apart, friendly, a little vague. How nice."
"I have only this hair on my head (always the same hair), that was once someone's dearest love. Now he loves nothing anymore."
"Winning does not tempt him. His growth is: to be the deeply defeated by ever greater things."
"And now this ivy is oddly heavy and so full of darkness, as if it drank future nights out of my things."
"Many things that exist only in the feelings of a woman who has known first love,-- you know."
"For you were not happy in all that brilliance, every color lay on you like guilt, and lived in impatience, for you knew: this is not the whole. Life is only a part . . . of what? Life is only a note . . . in what?"
"But how very much you were."
"The earth is full of balance, Your earth."
"What have I made today?"
Some of my favorite poems:
Memory, End of Autumn, Progress, Presentiment, Initial, About Fountains, The Man Reading, The Man Watching, From a Stormy Night
"Most of Rilke's great works came into being rapidly, in short, creative bursts, but The Book of Images evolved gradually, over a seven year period." During which he "became obsessed with a poetry of sculptural 'thingness'."
"Often one has the sense of Rilke writing his way into or through a poem, finding a feeling, an image, a situation, and following it wherever it leads him, not refining out what is weakest in the finished work but leaving it impure." The technique leaves Rilke painfully exposed and the effect can be extremely moving.
"One of the pleasures of the volume can be exploring its 'secret architecture' where motifs combine and recombine" intricately.
Some of my favorite lines:
"the sky, which to our shoulders was so heavy; true, through the boughs one still saw the day, how empty it was,-- but after long, rain-filled afternoons come the golden sun-drenched newer hours."
"South German night, bathed in August moonlight, and soft as all fairytales' recurrence. The knight rides forth in jet-black steel into the rushing, turbulent world."
"What gesture of those all alone might not be eavesdropped on by many things? Listen, love, I close my eyes, and even that makes sounds to reach you. Listen, love, I open them . . . but why are you not here?"
"The imprint of my smallest motion remains visible in the silken silence"
"You are the image, but I am the frame that makes you stand in glittering relief."
"You are the beginning that gushes forth, I am the slow and fearful Amen that timidly concludes your beauty."
"O sadness without reason, O dream, O dread, O depth without ground. O ever more escaping grasp of things, O weight, O fear. O childhood, O likeness gliding off . . . To where? To where?"
"In white veils the confirmed enter deeply into the new green of the garden. They have survived their childhood, and what comes now will be something changed."
"The old solitude comes over him, which reared him for his deep action"
"Life is heavier than the weight of all things."
"But to me the far-off is full of dream."
"I have to hold it all, until I die. Since whatever I put away out into the world falls, it is as if set down upon a wave."
"Do my senses really still play too much with light? Shall my face not forever stand out as a disturbance in the world of objects? Judge by my hands: Do they not lie there like tool and things?"
"But he sits, and beneath his thoughts his broad wrists almost break, as his mind grows heavier, always heavier."
"You know that picture of the huge judgement"
"And then it begins, after the great screaming: the overwhelming terrifying silence."
"Your life is so inexpressibly your own because it is laden with so many. Can you not sometimes feel how all pasts grow light, when you've lived a while, how they gently prepare you for amazement, companion each feeling with images,-- and how whole eras seem but a sign for some lovely gesture that you raise. -- This is the crux of all that once existed: that it does not remain with all its weight, that to our being it returns instead, woven into us, deep and magical"
"And thus things trivial and hard took place, only to give you for this daily living a thousand great similes and likenesses, by which you prodigiously may grow. Past upon past has been planted in you, in order out of you, like a garden, to rise."
"Your face is so filled with gazing, because for you the world was picture and picture; welled for you that great confidence that everything is and counts. Have you forgotten how life felt back then? You were enthralled by a flower tendril"
"I alone live and suffer and make noise. Inside me there's an endless screaming, and I don't know if it's my heart or my gut that screams."
"How strangely everything behaves, drifting together, swimming apart, friendly, a little vague. How nice."
"I have only this hair on my head (always the same hair), that was once someone's dearest love. Now he loves nothing anymore."
"Winning does not tempt him. His growth is: to be the deeply defeated by ever greater things."
"And now this ivy is oddly heavy and so full of darkness, as if it drank future nights out of my things."
"Many things that exist only in the feelings of a woman who has known first love,-- you know."
"For you were not happy in all that brilliance, every color lay on you like guilt, and lived in impatience, for you knew: this is not the whole. Life is only a part . . . of what? Life is only a note . . . in what?"
"But how very much you were."
"The earth is full of balance, Your earth."
"What have I made today?"
Some of my favorite poems:
Memory, End of Autumn, Progress, Presentiment, Initial, About Fountains, The Man Reading, The Man Watching, From a Stormy Night
June 5, 2016
THE SONG OF THE STATUE
Who is there who so loves me,
that he will throw away his own dear life?
If someone will die for me in the ocean,
I will be brought back from stone into life,
into life redeemed.
How I long for blood’s rushing; stone is so still.
I dream of life: life is good.
Has no one the courage through which I might awaken? And if I once more find myself in life,
given everything most golden,—
then I will weep alone, weep for my stone.
What help will my blood be, when it ripens like wine?
It cannot scream out of the ocean he who loved me most.
----
THE ANGELS
They all have tired mouths and bright seamless souls. And a longing (as for sin) sometimes haunts their dream. They are almost all alike;
in God’s gardens they keep still,
like many, many intervals in his might and melody.
Only when they spread their wings are they wakers of a wind:
as if God with his broad sculptor- hands leafed through the pages in the dark book of the beginning.
----
Out of infinite desires rise finite deeds
like weak fountains that fall back in early trembling arcs.
But those, which otherwise in us keep hidden,
our happy strengths—
they come forth in these dancing tears.
----
PRESENTIMENT
I am like a flag surrounded by distances.
I sense the winds that are coming,
and must live them,
while the things down below don’t yet stir: the doors still close softly,
and in the chimneys there’s silence; the windows don’t tremble yet, and the dust is still calm.
Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself and cast myself off and am entirely alone in the great storm.
Who is there who so loves me,
that he will throw away his own dear life?
If someone will die for me in the ocean,
I will be brought back from stone into life,
into life redeemed.
How I long for blood’s rushing; stone is so still.
I dream of life: life is good.
Has no one the courage through which I might awaken? And if I once more find myself in life,
given everything most golden,—
then I will weep alone, weep for my stone.
What help will my blood be, when it ripens like wine?
It cannot scream out of the ocean he who loved me most.
----
THE ANGELS
They all have tired mouths and bright seamless souls. And a longing (as for sin) sometimes haunts their dream. They are almost all alike;
in God’s gardens they keep still,
like many, many intervals in his might and melody.
Only when they spread their wings are they wakers of a wind:
as if God with his broad sculptor- hands leafed through the pages in the dark book of the beginning.
----
Out of infinite desires rise finite deeds
like weak fountains that fall back in early trembling arcs.
But those, which otherwise in us keep hidden,
our happy strengths—
they come forth in these dancing tears.
----
PRESENTIMENT
I am like a flag surrounded by distances.
I sense the winds that are coming,
and must live them,
while the things down below don’t yet stir: the doors still close softly,
and in the chimneys there’s silence; the windows don’t tremble yet, and the dust is still calm.
Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself and cast myself off and am entirely alone in the great storm.
January 31, 2022
Poems from a lover of Lou Andreas-Salome. Sis inspired the ones about childhood and loneliness.
He uses patterns of rhythm and rhyme and sounds, without being locked into them. The form plays with the content, flirts with repetition, then breaks it for effect. He is, for me, The Poet. Rilke is not my favorite poet, but if I had to say who comes closest to my favorite kind of poetry, it's him.
He uses patterns of rhythm and rhyme and sounds, without being locked into them. The form plays with the content, flirts with repetition, then breaks it for effect. He is, for me, The Poet. Rilke is not my favorite poet, but if I had to say who comes closest to my favorite kind of poetry, it's him.
Read
June 30, 2023Pont Du Carrousel
That blind man by the bridge, who is as gray
As a forgotten country's boundary stone,
Might be the thing most constant and alone
Around which stars are turning far away:
A centerpoint in isolate repose,
While all about him postures, strays, and flows.
Perhaps he shows a pathway to the just,
Beside which other paths look snarled and curled,
Or keeps an entrance to the underworld,
Invisible in superficial dust.
Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if in the heavens distant gardens withered;
they fall with gestures that say “no.”
And in the nights the heavy earth falls
from all the stars into aloneness.
We are all falling. This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.
And yet there is One who holds this falling
with infinite softness in his hands.
Memory
And you wait, you wait for that one thing
that will infinitely enlarge your life;
that gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stones,
depths turned round toward you.
The volumes bound in rust and gold
flicker dimly on the shelves;
and you think of lands traveled across,
of paintings, of the clothes of
women found and lost.
And then suddenly you know: it was then.
You rise, and before you
stands the fear and prayer and shape
of a vanished year.
That blind man by the bridge, who is as gray
As a forgotten country's boundary stone,
Might be the thing most constant and alone
Around which stars are turning far away:
A centerpoint in isolate repose,
While all about him postures, strays, and flows.
Perhaps he shows a pathway to the just,
Beside which other paths look snarled and curled,
Or keeps an entrance to the underworld,
Invisible in superficial dust.
Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far off,
as if in the heavens distant gardens withered;
they fall with gestures that say “no.”
And in the nights the heavy earth falls
from all the stars into aloneness.
We are all falling. This hand is falling.
And look at the others: it is in them all.
And yet there is One who holds this falling
with infinite softness in his hands.
Memory
And you wait, you wait for that one thing
that will infinitely enlarge your life;
that gigantic, the stupendous,
the awakening of stones,
depths turned round toward you.
The volumes bound in rust and gold
flicker dimly on the shelves;
and you think of lands traveled across,
of paintings, of the clothes of
women found and lost.
And then suddenly you know: it was then.
You rise, and before you
stands the fear and prayer and shape
of a vanished year.
June 19, 2024
4.5 maybe just because unlike other collections I’ve read recently there were one or two poems that were misses for me just a lil.
BUT WHEN ITS GOOD ITS SO GOOD. I love Rilke and will be reading much more of his work as soon as I can
BUT WHEN ITS GOOD ITS SO GOOD. I love Rilke and will be reading much more of his work as soon as I can
February 24, 2025
Rilke showed me what poetry could do.
Read
April 21, 2022couldn't find my footing in this collection, to revisit maybe.
May 29, 2024
"At first, when the old paths were still
in my nerves, well-marked from so much use:
then I suffered too.
Everything in my heart went away,
I didn't know at first where to search;
but then I found them all there,
all my feelings, all that I am,
stood together and thronged and screamed
at the walled-up eyes, which refused to move.
All my led-astray feelings...
I don't know if they stood like that for years,
but I remember the weeks
when they all came back broken
and recognized no one."
Rilke WAS THAT MAN. I wish he had some journals published, too. 😭
in my nerves, well-marked from so much use:
then I suffered too.
Everything in my heart went away,
I didn't know at first where to search;
but then I found them all there,
all my feelings, all that I am,
stood together and thronged and screamed
at the walled-up eyes, which refused to move.
All my led-astray feelings...
I don't know if they stood like that for years,
but I remember the weeks
when they all came back broken
and recognized no one."
Rilke WAS THAT MAN. I wish he had some journals published, too. 😭
January 25, 2014
Especially wonderful if you are afraid of or intimidated by poetry.
I enjoyed having the english translation next to the original german because I understand some german.
I've been told that this specific translation and translator keeps us as closer to the original words of Rilke than translations by others. Wish I understood and could read these more fully in german. I always wonder if we miss subtleties and deeper understanding when not reading any author's works not in his or her native tongue. That said, these poems always transport me...
I enjoyed having the english translation next to the original german because I understand some german.
I've been told that this specific translation and translator keeps us as closer to the original words of Rilke than translations by others. Wish I understood and could read these more fully in german. I always wonder if we miss subtleties and deeper understanding when not reading any author's works not in his or her native tongue. That said, these poems always transport me...
October 12, 2016
"Vejo que as tempestades vêm aí
pelas árvores que, à medida que os dias se tomam mornos,
batem nas minhas janelas assustadas
e ouço as distâncias dizerem coisas"...
É a chuva que,às vezes,mede as distancias*
September 7, 2013
if only religion didn't ruin perfectly sexy poetry with chastity and piousness.
March 19, 2021
”Who is there who so loves me, that he
will throw away his own dear life?
If someone will die for me in the ocean,
I will be brought back from stone
into life, into life redeemed.”
-
“Listen, love, I close my eyes,
and even that makes sounds to reach you.
Listen, love, I open them …
… but why are you not here?”
-
“I think now, that the star
whose brightness reached me
has been dead for a thousand years.”
-
“Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself
and cast myself off and am entirely alone
in the great storm.”
-
“The rich and the fortunate can well keep quiet,
nobody wants to know what they are.
But the destitute have to show themselves,
have to say: I am blind
or: I am about to become so
or: nothing on earth works out for me
or: I have a sick child
or: right here I am pieced together …
And perhaps even that won’t suffice.”
-
“it’s true: I am a breath inside the forest,
you though are the tree.”
-
“Recently I was so prepared,
and there were even bits of eternity
in my intestines.”
will throw away his own dear life?
If someone will die for me in the ocean,
I will be brought back from stone
into life, into life redeemed.”
-
“Listen, love, I close my eyes,
and even that makes sounds to reach you.
Listen, love, I open them …
… but why are you not here?”
-
“I think now, that the star
whose brightness reached me
has been dead for a thousand years.”
-
“Then I know the storms already and grow embroiled like the sea.
And spread myself out and plunge deep inside myself
and cast myself off and am entirely alone
in the great storm.”
-
“The rich and the fortunate can well keep quiet,
nobody wants to know what they are.
But the destitute have to show themselves,
have to say: I am blind
or: I am about to become so
or: nothing on earth works out for me
or: I have a sick child
or: right here I am pieced together …
And perhaps even that won’t suffice.”
-
“it’s true: I am a breath inside the forest,
you though are the tree.”
-
“Recently I was so prepared,
and there were even bits of eternity
in my intestines.”
May 24, 2021
No estoy muy segura acerca de qué pensar sobre este libro. En primer lugar, creo que el título me hizo esperar algo que nunca llegó y, por tanto, no he disfrutado al cien por cien del poemario. No es que sean poemas horribles, es puro Rilke (y como poeta, le disfruto mucho), sino que no he sabido adaptar lo que esperaba a lo que he terminado recibiendo.
También he de admitir que, tras haber leído "Poemas a la noche", he encontrado muchísimas referencias similares a las de este otro poemario: las mismas metáforas, figuras retóricas similares, temáticas muy reiterativas...
No puedo decir por tanto que no me haya gustado, pero sí que considero que no he terminado de disfrutarlo. Algún que otro poema suelto sí que me ha gustado mucho, y me encanta el poder leerlo en original y traducido (es impresionante ver la de cosas que se pierden en una traducción por lo mucho que cambia, por ejemplo, la fonética de un idioma a otro).
También he de admitir que, tras haber leído "Poemas a la noche", he encontrado muchísimas referencias similares a las de este otro poemario: las mismas metáforas, figuras retóricas similares, temáticas muy reiterativas...
No puedo decir por tanto que no me haya gustado, pero sí que considero que no he terminado de disfrutarlo. Algún que otro poema suelto sí que me ha gustado mucho, y me encanta el poder leerlo en original y traducido (es impresionante ver la de cosas que se pierden en una traducción por lo mucho que cambia, por ejemplo, la fonética de un idioma a otro).
December 19, 2024
La canción de la viuda
Al principio la vida me iba bien.
Me abrigaba, me daba valor.
Que hace eso con todos los jóvenes, cómo podía saberlo entonces.
Yo no sabía qué era la vida -, y de pronto sólo había un año tras otro, ya no buenos, ya no nuevos, ya no maravillosos, como partida en dos por la mitad.
No fue suya ni mía la culpa; no teníamos los dos más que paciencia, pero la muerte no la tiene.
La vi venir (qué malamente vino), y vi cómo se apoderaba cada vez de más, pero aquello no era mío.
¿Pues qué era lo mío, lo propiamente mío?
¿No era incluso mi miseria sólo un préstamo del destino?
El destino no quiere sólo la felicidad, quiere que le devuelvan el dolor y los gritos y compra de vieja la ruina.
El destino allí estaba y adquirió por una miseria cada expresión de mi rostro, salvo mi manera de andar.
Fue un saldo cada día y cuando quedé vacía, se marchó y me dejó en blanco.
😔🤍
Al principio la vida me iba bien.
Me abrigaba, me daba valor.
Que hace eso con todos los jóvenes, cómo podía saberlo entonces.
Yo no sabía qué era la vida -, y de pronto sólo había un año tras otro, ya no buenos, ya no nuevos, ya no maravillosos, como partida en dos por la mitad.
No fue suya ni mía la culpa; no teníamos los dos más que paciencia, pero la muerte no la tiene.
La vi venir (qué malamente vino), y vi cómo se apoderaba cada vez de más, pero aquello no era mío.
¿Pues qué era lo mío, lo propiamente mío?
¿No era incluso mi miseria sólo un préstamo del destino?
El destino no quiere sólo la felicidad, quiere que le devuelvan el dolor y los gritos y compra de vieja la ruina.
El destino allí estaba y adquirió por una miseria cada expresión de mi rostro, salvo mi manera de andar.
Fue un saldo cada día y cuando quedé vacía, se marchó y me dejó en blanco.
😔🤍
dnf
August 24, 2017I really wanted to read this book, but I guess it was not the right time for me. I couldn't concentrate on the poetry itself and be able to appreciate the language. Maybe I'll come back to it later?
May 20, 2020
This was my introduction to Rilke's poetry, and I will now be reading a lot more of it.
April 7, 2022
I really enjoyed this collection. I connected with some of the poems, but not with all of them.
September 14, 2022
Y’all this book is so good! I really enjoy Rilke’s other poetry and this one sat in my stomach and made me feel warm. I need to consume more.
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