Rainer Maria Rilke: Neue Gedichte/New Poems

Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture

by Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Cohn (Translator)

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) worked for a time as Rodin's secretary. The sculptor's example lies behind the new bias of his poems of 1907-8. Neue Gedichte is his most accessible work.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, German Literature, Germany, Fiction, Literature, 20th Century

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

A 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.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

PER UN’AMICA


Rainer Maria Rilke

Bisognerebbe saper attendere e raccogliere, per una vita intera e possibilmente lunga, senso e dolcezza, e poi, proprio alla fine, si potrebbero forse scrivere dieci righe valide. Perché i versi non sono, come crede la gente, sentimenti (che si acquistano precocemente), sono esperienze. Per scrivere un verso bisogna vedere molte città, uomini e cose, bisogna conoscere gli animali, bisogna capire il volo degli uccelli e comprendere il gesto con cui i piccoli fiori si schiudono al mattino. Bisogna saper ripensare a sentieri in regioni sconosciute, a incontri inaspettati e congedi previsti da tempo, a giorni dell’infanzia ancora indecifrati, ai genitori che eravamo costretti a ferire quando ci porgevano una gioia e non la comprendevamo (era una gioia per qualcun altro), a malattie infantili che cominciavano in modo così strano con tante profonde e gravi trasformazioni, a giorni in camere silenziose, raccolte, e a mattine sul mare, al mare soprattutto, ai mari, a notti di viaggio che passavano alte rumoreggianti e volavano assieme alle stelle, e non basta ancora poter pensare a tutto questo. Bisogna avere ricordi di molte notti d’amore, nessuna uguale all’altra, di grida di partorienti e di lievi, bianche puerpere addormentate che si richiudono. Ma anche accanto ai moribondi bisogna esser stati, bisogna essere rimasti vicino ai morti nella stanza con la finestra aperta e i rumori a folate. E ancora avere ricordi non basta. Bisogna saperli dimenticare, quando sono troppi, e avere la grande pazienza d’attendere che ritornino. Perché i ricordi in sé ancora non sono. Solo quando divengono in noi sangue, sguardo e gesto, anonimi e non più distinguibili da noi stessi, solo allora può darsi che in una rarissima ora si levi dal loro centro e sgorghi la prima parola di un verso.
Brano tratto da I quaderni di Malte Laurids Brigge


Rainer Maria Rilke a Mosca in un disegno di Léonid Pasternak. 1928. Collezione privata.

[Annelies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think, beauty speaks for itself. The poems of Rilke do. So, They must be beautiful. I totally agree. Sometimes I feel also loneliness in them, time which has passed and flows away, ... but always, there is the masters' eye for beauty. And That's what counts.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the bilangual German-Dutch edition of the 'Neue Gedichte', published by Van Oorschot, 1997. It's a very nice edition with especially good text comments. Normally I'm not such a fan of elaborate, baroque poems, but Rilke's so-called "thing poems" really resonated. I also particularly liked those about his journey in Flanders (yes, a tiny little bit of chauvinism, popping up here).

[Valentina Vapaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

rilke is a must. while he tortures german highschoolers he opens worlds of intellect & aestheticism for other passionate readers. rilkes poems flow like water streams in roman fountains. nothing compares,

[Jed Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objective poems inspired by the actuality of Rodin’s sculptures. They are all keenly observed but many lack an animating spirit.

[Ross Blocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun challenge. I've been studying German for a few years, and went looking for narrative deutsche Bücher, but my local library did not have any in its language section. Instead, I found a collection of translated German poetry, including a biography of Ranier Maria Rilke that I read first. This volume from 1907 lent itself to a helpful exercise: reading a poem (typically aloud) in German, then reading the English translation, then going back through the original line-by-line to analyze specific phrases. It was a good opportunity to get exposure to the German language used in a different and less practical mode, from over a century ago, and identify familiar words, add new ones to my lexicon (Seligkeit/bliss, glühend/glowing, geduld/patience, berühren/touch, Dichter/poet, etc.), and at the very least let them wash over me so they can be more familiar later. I could feel a sense of excitement (Aufregung!) when I successfully understood the meaning of an abstract or unusual phrase, or curiosity (Neugierde) when I was thrown by a near-cognate, or saw a word used in an unexpected way.

The poetry itself was enjoyable, albeit secondary to my purposes. There are many subjects, making for a welcome variety. Rilke often analyzes a sculpture, painting, piece of architecture, a character from mythology, an animal or even a plant, and tells a very specific story about it coming to life, or lets his mind run with some theme that he senses in the details. Often these are themes of sadness, loneliness, or numinous forces beyond power or comprehension. Some felt overwrought, others were simple and lovely. Sometimes he would observe creative rhyming schemes and the translator, Edward Snow, would not force them into translation, so I'd have to do another pass just to read quickly in German and feel the meter. Many of the references sent me a-Googling to find the original reference he was responding to, which made for some fun additional discoveries. This all took a lot longer than the length of the book would suggest, but I'm glad I did it!

[Jessie Pietens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not quite sure what to make of this collection. I am definitely impressed by the translation, as the original German poems are included on the left hand page, while the Dutch translation is on the right. Nevertheless I felt like some of the poetry wasn’t for me. It felt a bit distant and flat, while some other poems were really vivid and had an immense power to paint a picture or feeling. The two poems about Adam and Eve were my favourite, especially how they mirrored each other. While I didn’t enjoy the entire collection I am very curious to read more by Rilke in the future!

[Maryana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This set of poems is another demonstration of the infinite unfolding of the soul. Everything Rilke wrote is so sensible and beautiful. I don't really know why and I don't feel this with so many authors, but sometimes I wish I knew him in person. Luckily there are all his poems left.


Oh Rilke, how much I love you.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

He revisado esta edición bilingüe de la primera parte de Nuevos Poemas (1907) casi en paralelo con los poemas de esa colección contenidos en las antología de Austral (Jaime Ferreiro), de North Point Press (en inglés) de Edward Snow y de Modern Library (Stephen Mitchell). Por comparación, estas traducciones me han parecido muy solventes, más entendibles aunque menos poéticas que las de Ferreiro para Austral y bastante similares a las de Snow en inglés.

[Eliana]

Very intrigued by what Rilke did here—what the translator describes as “a poetry that would somehow manage to belong to the world of things rather than feelings,” and chiefly inspired by the sculpture art of Rodin, by whom Rilke was deeply inspired. There’s a lot of emphasis in these poems on the physical “mind” of description and mythological storytelling, as opposed to matters of the “heart.” Yet Rilke somehow manages to evoke feelings and attachments despite his effort to remain true to the “objects” he brings to readers’ attention.

Another translator note—“[the poems] deny us subjectivity in order to restore us to the world”—I can also see play out in these poems, but it gets me thinking about what the purpose of poetry is, both formulaically and in the types of meaning it conveys…

I can’t say I enjoyed these poems as much as I had hoped to, considering how I have clung strongly to many of Rilke’s other more well-known works throughout the years, but from a literary standpoint I kind of get it. Maybe the descriptions don’t sit quite so heavily in the original German.

[Ally]

my favorites were:
the departure of the prodigal son
a girl's lament
pietà
childhood
the grown up
death experience
birth of venus
portrait
the woman in love
buddha in glory

[Patrick Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems and lovely translations. This volume always seemed to hit just right. It feels very modern, while still firmly rooted. Lush words and very lyrical.

[minhal ༊·˚⋆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

poetry impossible not to love with loneliness in between lines and beauty in every word, the type of poems that make your heart hurt

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rilke’s god has gone, leaving things and myths. Thngs are material objects that acquire significance only if we treat them as symbols.

[Lara Van Den Bosch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prachtige gedichten. Zelfs vertaald zijn ze mooi. Ik moest ze soms wel vijf keer lezen en dan ontdekte ik weer nieuwe dingen.

Ik ben hier niet goed in. Kan er maar een paar achter elkaar lezen voor het slapengaan. Poëzie is lastig te verslinden. Maar wat knap en mooi

[Hundeschlitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Rilke's language, and there are so many passages in this book that are poignant, beautiful, true. This is relatively early stuff, and the full breadth of Rilke's vision of the world is not yet there. But in some ways this makes the poems more accessible and easier to appreciate. I could do without some of the focus on Greek gods and French buildings, but even here, Rilke never rests long on the ostensible topic but is soon diving into the immediate sensations and insights of life as it is truly lived.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Departure of the Prodigal Son

Now to go away from all this confusion
that is ours without belonging to us,
that like the water in old wellsprings
mirrors us trembling and destroys the image;
from all this, that is clinging to us
once more as if with thorns—to go away,
and on all the scattered things
you’d long since ceased to see
(they were so everyday and ordinary)
suddenly to gaze: gently, contritely,
and as in a beginning and from close by;
and to fathom how impersonally,
how over everyone the sorrow came
that filled childhood up to the brim—:
And even then to go away, hand slipping
from hand, as if you tore a new-healed wound,
and to go away: where? into uncertainty,
far into some warm, unrelated land
that behind all acting will be
indifferent as a backdrop—garden or wall;
and to go away: why? From urge, from instinct,
from impatience, from dark expectation,
from not understanding and not being understood:

To take all this upon yourself and in vain
perhaps let fall the things you’ve held,
in order to die alone, not knowing why—

Is this the way new life commences?


In the Hall

How they’re all around us, these gentlemen
in chamberlain’s attire and lace,
like a night around its order-star
growing ever darker, relentlessly,
and these ladies, slight, fragile, yet made large
by their dresses, with one hand in their laps,
small like the collar for a tiny dog;
how they’re around each of us here: around the reader,
around the observer of these trinkets,
many of which still belong to them.

Full of tact, they let us go on undisturbed
living life as we conceive it, a life
they don’t understand. They wanted blooming,
and blooming is being beautiful; but we want ripening,
and that means being dark and taking pains.


The Tower
Tour St. -Nicolas, Furnes

Earth-inwardness. As if the goal toward which
you’re blindly climbing were the earth’s outside,
and you were climbing toward it in the steeply
winding bed of streams that have welled up slowly

from this groping clot of darkness through which
your face is pressing, as if rising from the dead,
and which suddenly you see, as though it plunged
from this abyss which overhangs you

and which, as gigantically above you
it turns head over heels in the glimmering rafters,
you recognize, with a rush of terror, feeling:
O if it climbs, hung like a bull—

But then gusty light pulls you out of
that narrow ending. Almost flying you see here
the skies again, dazzle upon dazzle,
and there the depths, awake and full of use,

and little days like those of Patenier,
present all at once, their hours side by side,
and bridges leaping through them like dogs,
always on the scent of the bright road

which clumsy houses sometimes barely
manage to conceal, until far in the background
it moves relieved through brushwood and open field.


Edward Snow Translation
*

[Tim Weemhoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

In het cultureel bruisende, vooroorlogse Wenen van Zweigs De wereld van gisteren komt de Oostenrijkse dichter Rainer Maria Rilke veelvuldig voor. Het was er nog niet van gekomen iets van hem te lezen, maar onlangs kwam er een mooie poëzietip voorbij in Van Dis ongefilterd: een nieuwe tweetalige uitgave bij IJzer van de bundels Neue Gedichte (1907) en Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil (1908), in de sterke vertalingen van Gerard Kessels.

Prachtige, lyrische en melodieuze gedichten, vaak geïnspireerd door mythologie, natuur, schilderijen of beeldhouwwerken, zoals de schitterende Archaïsche torso van Apollo (met het devies voor de kunstenaar: “Du mußt dein leben ändern”), gebaseerd op een buste uit het Louvre.

Ontroerend is De dood van de geliefde (vermoedelijk gebaseerd op Orpheus):

“Hij wist slechts van de dood wat ieder weet:
dat hij ons neemt en ons in stomheid slaat.
Toen echter zij, niet ruwweg weggekaapt
bij hem, nee, zachtjes uit zijn blikveld gleed,

tot onbekende schimmen overging
en toen hij voelde dat zij nu daarginds
het maanlicht van haar meisjeslach bezaten
en heel de schoonheid van haar doen en laten:

toen werden hem de doden zo verwant
alsof door haar met elk van hen hij diep
verbonden was - de rest maar praten liet,

geloofde niet, en noemde gindse land
het welgelegene, het immerzoete -
en tastte er de grond af voor haar voeten.”

Rilke observeert scherp in zijn gedichten en komt zo tot de kern van een onderwerp, veelal door gebruik van metaforen en vergelijkingen, zeker in het tweede deel dat is opgedragen aan en geïnspireerd door zijn vriend en beeldhouwer Auguste Rodin die hem heeft leren kijken.

“ De blinde

Zie, hij loopt en onderbreekt de stad,
die daar waar hij donkert niet bestaat,
als een barst die door een theekop gaat
donkert hij in licht. En als een blad

is hij waar de weerschijn van dingen
op geschilderd is en ondoorlaatbaar.
Enkel zijn gevoel beweegt als ving het
elke kleine werelddeining daar:

stilte, een obstakel - en hij talmt,
kiest dan zomaar lijkt het iemand uit:
biedt in overgave aan zijn hand,
bijna feestelijk als aan zijn bruid.”

[Raoul G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diese Gedichtesammlung von Rainer Maria Rilke konnte mich nicht ganz so überzeugen wie Das Stundenbuch. Vermutlich hängt das auch mit der Thematik der Sammlung zusammen, die beim Stundenbuch etwas fokusierter und vermutlich auch interessanter für mich persönlich ist. Doch auch hier habe ich das eine oder andere Gedicht gefunden das mir sehr gut gefallen hat.
'Der Ölbaum-Garten', 'Der Dichter', 'Die Erblindende', 'Todeserfahrung' haben es mir besonders angetan und natürlich das sagenhafte 'Liebes-Lied':

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection on Goodreads gathers two volumes translated by Snow: New Poems, 1907 and New Poems: The Other Part, 1908, both published in the 1980s. The collection is abridged, so I suggest tracking down each individual volume for the best translation of both complete books. I also recommend the Joseph Cadora translation (also with complete poems from both volumes) for the wonderful footnotes. I will review both Snow volumes individually after I read each one.

New Poems, 1907:

Rilke’s first collection of New Poems, published in 1907, contains what might be called poetic still lifes. Influenced by the sculpture of Rodin, he attempts to infuse the everyday materiality of still objects -- roses, a cathedral, bodies in a morgue, a courtesan, a gazelle, a man in prison, etc. -- with a life that is at once separate from the observer but also inside each of us. The subjects become universal markers to which each reader can relate not in our (or the poet’s) visual connection to the object itself, but in how we are moved by the shared experience as seen through the poet’s eye. And so the “movement” in the still life (i.e, the poetic image) occurs not from without (in the object itself, or in its ekphrastic description), but from within the poet -- and likewise, from within the reader.

Like Buddha in the first poem of the same title, the world of experience is simultaneously something distant, but also hovering and ever-present. He is not “a star,” but “Star” -- the central, guiding force around which all other stars gather. (“O, he is everything,” Rilke writes, not in wonder, but almost as a casual aside, as if intoning, “O, that’s just the air that we breathe…” His presence, like that of the world of experience, is so ever-present as to be a given.)

And it is the poet’s job to remind us of the extraordinary in the ordinary objects around us. As the Angel of one poem reaches out and beckons to us from Eternity, so too does the poet, showing us through his art a world without limits (“With a slight nod he dismisses forever / all that sets limits and obliges”), if only we take the time to silently reflect -- experiencing in our own stillness the rapid and continuous transmutation taking place within.

New Poems: The Other Part, 1908:

Published only one year after the first collection of New Poems, these feel much less intense and personal. Only a handful of poems, including the last one, "Buddha in Glory," gave me the same sublime sense of oneness with the poet as I felt when reading the first volume. Indeed, that final Buddha poem felt like it was meant to be not only a companion verse to the Buddha poems in the first volume, but also the lynchpin of both volumes. Overall, I would only recommend reading this second volume along with (and after) reading the first.

[la poesie a fleur de peau]

"Tal como por vezes uma manhã, ao despontar
através de ramos ainda nus, ao se encontrar
inteiramente primaveril: assim na sua cabeça e em redor
nada existe que possa impedir que o esplendor

de todos os poemas nos atinja de modo quase fatal;
pois ainda nenhuma sombra há em seu olhar,
ainda estão demasiado frias suas têmporas para os louros as tocar
e só mais tarde de suas sobrancelhas, delicadamente,

erguer-se-á ao alto o roseiral,
de onde as pétalas desgarradas, caindo lentamente,
são impelidas para os lábios a tremer,

agora ainda silenciosos, intactos, a brilhar
e com o sorriso alguma coisa a beber,
como se lhe fosse inspirado o cantar."

Apolo Antigo, Rainer Maria Rilke
Trad. Maria Teresa Dias Furtado

[Frida❦ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Song from the Sea

Age-old breeze from the sea,
sea wind by night:
you come seeking no one;
whoever wakes
must find you his own way
and outlast you;
age-old breeze from the sea,
blowing only
as if for old-age stone,
sheer space
tearing in from afar . . .

O how you’re felt by
a burgeoning fig tree
high in the moonlight.

[Araceli.libros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Por qué me empeño en leer poesía traducida…

[han · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rilke just gets it

[Sherry Elmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I need to buy in order to read it many times over the course of many years. I appreciated Robert Hass' foreword, and his advice for non-German speakers to read multiple translations of Rilke in order to understand his poetry. This edition presents the poem in the original German with the rhyme scheme in the margin, and Joseph Cadora's rhymed English translation on the facing page, along with extensive notes; in fact, there is a footnote to every poem. Cadora must have spent an enormous amount of time with Rilke's poetry and correspondence in order to give us this book. I expect my three star rating would go up with subsequent readings.

Here are a couple of the poems from the book:

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We could not ever know his wondrous head,
with eyes like apples that are ripening.
But the lamp of his torso is still glowing,
although it is turned down low, to spread

his glance, which abides and glimmers within.
Else the curve of the breast could not dazzle you,
not, in turning, could a smile play through
those loins to the center of procreation.

Else this stone would seem stunted and defiled
and could not shimmer so, like a wild
beast's fur beneath the shoulder's sheer surface,

and it would not burst from its bounds, so rife
with light and star-like, for there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.


The Death of the Beloved

Of death he knew only what all understand:
that it strikes us dumb and snatches us hence.
But as she, not ripped away from his hand,
no, but released so softly from his glance,

crossed to that place of unknown shadow,
and as he sensed that those on the other side
possessed the moon of her maiden smile now
and felt its ways and were gratified,

then the dead wore a familiar face,
so he felt as if related through her
to them all; he let those others chatter

but did not heed them, and named that place
a land well located, a country most sweet.
And searched its many pathways for her feet.

[Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the following poem summarizes my first impression of Rilke's New Poems:

The Rose Window

In there: The lazy pacing of their paws
creates a stillness that's almost dizzying;
and how, then, suddenly one of the cats
takes the gaze on it, that strays now and then,
violently into its great eye --
The gaze that, as if seized by a whirlpool's
circle, for a little while swims
and then sinks and ceases to remember,
when this eye, which apparently rests,
opens and slams shut with a roaring
and tears it deep into the red blood -- :
Thus, long ago, out of the darkness
the cathedrals' great rose windows
seized a heart and tore it into God.

This translation above is slightly different from the one in the book (page 53), but the poetic breaking-through from the ordinary to the transcending moments. Rose Window of a Cathedral may be exactly what Rilke's poems are about: an accessible pictorial narrative yet infused with a transcending glow, both beautiful and terrifying with the potential of a sudden pounce.

Quite a few of the poems are from biblical sources. The Olive Garden is an intensely human interpretation of Jesus ’s agony in Gethsemane. Many others are from Greco-Roman mythology such as “Leda” (imagining the lure of being a swan for the rapist god Jupiter), and the long poems based on Euripides’s Alcestis and Orpheus, which are re-interpreted from different viewpoint.

This reader is grateful for the readability of Rilke’s poems with its rich reference to classic texts and symbols. In some ways, Rilke reminded me of Cavafy's use of Homeric themes.

This collection is very enjoyable.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etwas unausgewogen für meinen Geschmack (Ortsbeschreibungen und Blumen-blabla sind nicht mein Ding), aber auch viele tolle Zeilen und Gedichte: Der Panther, Die Spitze, Spanische Tänzerin, usw.

Sie wollten blühn, und blühn ist schön sein; doch wir wollen reifen, und das heißt dunkel sein und sich bemühn.
(Im Saal)
Du schnell vergehendes Daguerreotyp in meinen langsamer vergehenden Händen.
(Jugendbild meines Vaters)
Und wenn uns eines Tages dieses Tun und was an uns geschieht gering erschiene und uns so fremd, als ob es nicht verdiene, daß wir so mühsam aus den Kinderschuhn um seinetwillen wachsen—: Ob die Bahn vergilbter Spitze, diese dichtgefügte blumige Spitzenbahn, dann nicht genügte, uns hier zu halten? Sieh: sie ward getan. Ein Leben ward vielleicht verschmäht, wer weiß? Ein Glück war da und wurde hingegeben, und endlich wurde doch, um jeden Preis, dies Ding daraus, nicht leichter als das Leben und doch vollendet und so schön, als sei's nicht mehr zu früh, zu lächeln und zu schweben.
(Die Spitze)

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of these poems are quite amazing in translation, and as it is a bilingual edition, it was possible to look over at the German and get a sense for the original flow; many of them were rhymed but I think Snow made the right decision in not forcing that into the English versions. It is nice to be able to query phrases that seem a little off; I had an enjoyable time putting one of my favourites ("The Olive Garden") into Google translate in the German and seeing what it came up with.

Rilke wrote so much, and so much of it is good, but I think many of these may be his best. Some of them seem as though they would have been shocking in their day -- "Pieta" comes to mind. But for goodness sake, do not just go find any translation; Snow really does get it right. The others I found of "Pieta" online just now were terrible, very sentimental, almost twee.

Reading truly excellent poetry makes me wish I had more time to write.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scrupulously translated and well-edited collection of Rilke's New Poems, the most intensely creative period of the poet's life (before the sonnets and the elegies). I only took away one star because no German-English translation of this author's poetry will ever top the Stephen Mitchell translation for me. We stand in awe when we look at Rilke's art--a sentiment he echoes in his own work.

From "Archaic Torso of Apollo"

We could not ever know his wondrous head,
with eyes like apples that are ripening.
But the lamp of the torso is still glowing,
although it's turned down low...

....

and it would not burst from its bounds, so rife
with life and star-like, for there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

[Matt Ambs]

Rilke's fine art of the external poem, in which he writes not upon his feelings but upon things which he has felt. At times, especially in Rilke's addition of his second collection of new poems, the poems seem rather callous, rather spiritless, but perhaps what Rilke has done through his self-dispossession allows, for the first time, the poem to stand alone, to take on metaphorical meaning through the establishment of natural tensions, natural contradictions, and natural harmonies. We come to see through these poems how humanity has undergone the great artifice of the sentiment and of the soul.