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Poems from the Book of Hours
64 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1905
36 people are currently reading
981 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 88 reviews
January 10, 2019
First read 2006
There is very little pre-modern poetry that I am able to read myself, (though I can often appreciate it being recited) and I am not sure whether it's Rilke's genius or Babette Deutsch's musical, mainly free verse translation that makes these poems so beautiful, so perfectly clear and direct, like a mountain spring rolling over your toes, like a smooth cool pebble dropped into your hand.
As an atheist I have to interrogate myself and work hard for a meaningful interpretation when I read Rilke, but his god is so interesting that sometimes I'm content to smile and leave him to it. Even the unbeliever can find some stimulating conversation to have with these poems, if not comfort and sweetness.
In her introductions Deutsch writes (beautifully) about Rilke's god as created by art "The wine not yet ripened", but here the poet addresses god in intimate love as, it seems to me, both parent and child.
Without agreeing with him, I have sympathy for Nietzsche's sneer at Christian morality. Love your neighbour and give away your wealth is simply not enough to live by, which is why the 'great' Catholic theologians like Aquinas had to shore it up with Aristotle and other philosophers of the greco-roman tradition. Rilke takes a different approach, placing responsibility on the individual to create a world of gentleness and respect for nature through love. Hmm. Well it works as poetry, it works as an appeal, it feels nice.
This apartness of other beings, especially animals, is picked up by DH Lawrence, for example in his poem Fish. When I read Lawrence's poem in this anthology I thought I had read in Rilke a wonderful poem about animals' experience of the world in this little collection, but I was confused; the poem was in The Thunder Mutters. It's much richer and chewier than the sweet little poems here, so I know there's a lot more Rilke for me. That's good, because his words make the world lovelier. They weigh in the balance against despair.
There is very little pre-modern poetry that I am able to read myself, (though I can often appreciate it being recited) and I am not sure whether it's Rilke's genius or Babette Deutsch's musical, mainly free verse translation that makes these poems so beautiful, so perfectly clear and direct, like a mountain spring rolling over your toes, like a smooth cool pebble dropped into your hand.
As an atheist I have to interrogate myself and work hard for a meaningful interpretation when I read Rilke, but his god is so interesting that sometimes I'm content to smile and leave him to it. Even the unbeliever can find some stimulating conversation to have with these poems, if not comfort and sweetness.
What will you do God, when I die?
When I, your pitcher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
you lose your meaning, losing me.
Homeless without me, you will be
robbed of your welcome, warm and sweet.
I am your sandals: your tired feet
will wander bare for want of me.
Your mighty cloak will fall away.
Your glance that on my cheek was laid
and pillowed warm, will seek, dismayed,
the comfort that I offered once -
to lie, as sunset colours fade
in the cold lap of alien stones.
What will you do, God? I am afraid.
In her introductions Deutsch writes (beautifully) about Rilke's god as created by art "The wine not yet ripened", but here the poet addresses god in intimate love as, it seems to me, both parent and child.
All will grow great and powerful again:
the seas be wrinkled and the land be plain,
the trees gigantic and the walls be low;
and in the valleys, strong and multiform,
a race of herdsfolk and of farmers grow.
No churches to encircle God as though
he were a fugitive, and then bewail him
as if he were a captured wounded creature -
all houses will prove friendly, there will be
a sense of boundless sacrifice prevailing
in dealings between men, in you, in me.
No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it,
but longing to degrade not even death;
we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends,
to feel its hands about us like a friend's.
Without agreeing with him, I have sympathy for Nietzsche's sneer at Christian morality. Love your neighbour and give away your wealth is simply not enough to live by, which is why the 'great' Catholic theologians like Aquinas had to shore it up with Aristotle and other philosophers of the greco-roman tradition. Rilke takes a different approach, placing responsibility on the individual to create a world of gentleness and respect for nature through love. Hmm. Well it works as poetry, it works as an appeal, it feels nice.
They will say "mine" as one will sometimes call
the prince his friend in speech with villagers,
the prince being very great - and far away.
They call strange walls "mine," knowing not at all
who is the master of the house indeed.
They still say "mine", and claim possession, though
each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes;
a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses
as owner of the lightning and the sun.
And so they say: my life, my wife, my child,
my dog, well knowing all that they have styled
their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain
shapes foreign and unknown,
that blindly groping they must stumble on.
This truth, be sure, only the great discern,
who long for eyes. The others will not learn
that in the beggary of their wandering
they cannot claim a bond with any thing,
but, driven from possessions they have prized,
not by their own belongings recognized,
they can OWN wives no more than they own flowers,
whose life is alien and apart from ours.
This apartness of other beings, especially animals, is picked up by DH Lawrence, for example in his poem Fish. When I read Lawrence's poem in this anthology I thought I had read in Rilke a wonderful poem about animals' experience of the world in this little collection, but I was confused; the poem was in The Thunder Mutters. It's much richer and chewier than the sweet little poems here, so I know there's a lot more Rilke for me. That's good, because his words make the world lovelier. They weigh in the balance against despair.
December 8, 2021
this book has just helped me survive the tragic first hour of the england cricket game 😥
October 22, 2022
the kind of poetry that makes you want to rip up and throw away all of your own
June 11, 2025
How do you "review" poetry like Rilke's? It refutes any opinion you have about it. It's the record of a mortal's struggle with God. It's mysticism: baffling and sometimes beautiful. Gott, du bist gross.
Read
March 3, 2023"I am the rest between two notes
which, struck together, sound discordantly,
because death's note would claim a higher key.
But in that dark pause, trembling, the notes meet, harmonious.
And the song continues sweet."
which, struck together, sound discordantly,
because death's note would claim a higher key.
But in that dark pause, trembling, the notes meet, harmonious.
And the song continues sweet."
December 28, 2016
Let me begin this by stating that this review is for the Babette Deutsch translation of New Directions' 1941 edition of Poems from the Book of Hours -- there is no Ursula Le Guin Preface here (though that would have been most impressive, as she would have only been a young girl at the time of this publication). I assume that otherwise the work is the same, but it is possible that more poems from the Book of Hours have been translated and that some of the translations have been amended over the years. The Preface in this edition (which I reference below) is by Babette Deutsch, and whether or not it is also in this 2016 edition is something I do not know. So apologies in advance for any inconsistencies.
In this Preface, Babette Deutsch writes:
Certainly the Deity invoked in these poems is no distant and supernal power, but one close to the adorable humanity adumbrated in Blake's Everlasting Gospel. The God whom THE BOOK OF HOURS celebrates is not the Creator of the universe, but seems rather the creation of mankind, and above all, of that most intensely conscious part of mankind, the artists. He is present and to be revered in all that "truly lives," but he is not yet perfected; in a sense, he is also the future, the incomplete, the unachieved, the cathedral still in the building, the wine that has not yet ripened.
This paragraph succinctly summarizes the handful of early Rilke poems contained in the pages of this little book. And this is obvious when Rilke invokes the "neighbor God" who is alone and ever so quiet on just the other side of "a narrow wall." It is a spirit that is so near and yet to many so distant, and so people build "churches to encircle God as though he were a fugitive" and "name [God] loudly when they come to pray/forget[ting God's] nearness."
Prior to reading this collection of early Rilke poems -- which were written early in his life and apparently do not reflect the art of the mature poet (the potential Rilke) -- I had never read any of Rilke's verse. I had only read Letters to a Young Poet, and although it has been a few years since I last read that work, what I find similar between it and this small collection of poems is a deep humanism; but he also realized that, while he sympathized with others' pain, neither he nor any one else could deliver another safely to their desired destination on the road of life.
While he delivers some comfort in his words, which some may doubtlessly find helpful, Rilke also believed that (as he writes in Letters to a Young Poet), "Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself." By discovering oneself, one may be able to tap into the creative (spiritual) energy that is within us all.
This collection of poems was a quick and interesting read, but it failed to satiate -- I find myself, having put down this book, wanting to discover the complete Book of Hours. Yet, I am also pleased with what this little taste offered.
In this Preface, Babette Deutsch writes:
Certainly the Deity invoked in these poems is no distant and supernal power, but one close to the adorable humanity adumbrated in Blake's Everlasting Gospel. The God whom THE BOOK OF HOURS celebrates is not the Creator of the universe, but seems rather the creation of mankind, and above all, of that most intensely conscious part of mankind, the artists. He is present and to be revered in all that "truly lives," but he is not yet perfected; in a sense, he is also the future, the incomplete, the unachieved, the cathedral still in the building, the wine that has not yet ripened.
This paragraph succinctly summarizes the handful of early Rilke poems contained in the pages of this little book. And this is obvious when Rilke invokes the "neighbor God" who is alone and ever so quiet on just the other side of "a narrow wall." It is a spirit that is so near and yet to many so distant, and so people build "churches to encircle God as though he were a fugitive" and "name [God] loudly when they come to pray/forget[ting God's] nearness."
Prior to reading this collection of early Rilke poems -- which were written early in his life and apparently do not reflect the art of the mature poet (the potential Rilke) -- I had never read any of Rilke's verse. I had only read Letters to a Young Poet, and although it has been a few years since I last read that work, what I find similar between it and this small collection of poems is a deep humanism; but he also realized that, while he sympathized with others' pain, neither he nor any one else could deliver another safely to their desired destination on the road of life.
While he delivers some comfort in his words, which some may doubtlessly find helpful, Rilke also believed that (as he writes in Letters to a Young Poet), "Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself." By discovering oneself, one may be able to tap into the creative (spiritual) energy that is within us all.
This collection of poems was a quick and interesting read, but it failed to satiate -- I find myself, having put down this book, wanting to discover the complete Book of Hours. Yet, I am also pleased with what this little taste offered.
October 22, 2018
From memory (and thus prone to error):
"Although as from a prison walled with hate,
Each from his own self labours to be free,
The world yet filled with wonder and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the aging alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life — who really lives it? God, do you?
"Although as from a prison walled with hate,
Each from his own self labours to be free,
The world yet filled with wonder and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the aging alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life — who really lives it? God, do you?
Read
August 4, 2021In diesem Dorfe steht das letzte Haus so einsam wie das letzte Haus der Welt.
Read
December 30, 2024Okay a couple disclaimers:
I am reading a copy of this from 1968, so I don’t know how accurate it is. I definitely have not read the one with Ursula K Le Guin as editor but I should. The preface for this book talks about how this is only some of the poems from the Book of Hours and this copy doesn’t have any of the poems from the third section The Book of Poverty and Death. So I need to learn German to actually truly really read this book.
Now all that being said:
This book is phenomenal. Rilke has such a strong personal relationship with God that is palpable, so tangible, so vulnerable, it’s beautiful. I also didn’t realize till I looked up this book to learn that the book is also referred to as “Love Poems to God”—makes a lot of sense.
Some of the poems I really enjoyed were:
“We are all workmen: prentice, journeyman,”
“What will you do, God, when I die?”
“Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine””
All of which are wonderfully complex and nuisance on how they approach talking and relating to God. The last one especially, “Do not be troubled, God, …” is wonderful as it discusses releasing ownership of God, giving God over to no one so that he can be with all. There’s poems also being possessive of God, framing God as dependent on the Speaker, The speaker being broken down by God and a lot of the speaker questions God’s place in the world, in nature, how he exists and creatures. It’s all very passionate and raw. Damn you Rainer Maria Rilke. You write a beautiful poem.
I am reading a copy of this from 1968, so I don’t know how accurate it is. I definitely have not read the one with Ursula K Le Guin as editor but I should. The preface for this book talks about how this is only some of the poems from the Book of Hours and this copy doesn’t have any of the poems from the third section The Book of Poverty and Death. So I need to learn German to actually truly really read this book.
Now all that being said:
This book is phenomenal. Rilke has such a strong personal relationship with God that is palpable, so tangible, so vulnerable, it’s beautiful. I also didn’t realize till I looked up this book to learn that the book is also referred to as “Love Poems to God”—makes a lot of sense.
Some of the poems I really enjoyed were:
“We are all workmen: prentice, journeyman,”
“What will you do, God, when I die?”
“Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine””
All of which are wonderfully complex and nuisance on how they approach talking and relating to God. The last one especially, “Do not be troubled, God, …” is wonderful as it discusses releasing ownership of God, giving God over to no one so that he can be with all. There’s poems also being possessive of God, framing God as dependent on the Speaker, The speaker being broken down by God and a lot of the speaker questions God’s place in the world, in nature, how he exists and creatures. It’s all very passionate and raw. Damn you Rainer Maria Rilke. You write a beautiful poem.
on-hold
January 4, 2022Rainer Maria Rilke wrote many, many poems. Right now I am reading:
Das Stundenbuch (The Book of Hours) (1899-1903)
It's a longform poem in three books (more like chapters in terms of actual length - but for a poem it sure is LONG) about God and Life and ...
EMO
Yes, emo. You read that right. To me, there are two Rilkes: one is the brilliant penman of masterpieces like The Archaic Torso of Apollo.
In terms of music, one Rilke is Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
The other Rilke, though, the Rilke of the Book of Hours? He's My Chemical Romance.
No shade if My Chemical Romance is your thing. But I think we can agree it's not a band anyone would accuse of spawning amazing classics. Also, they are very emo. And add a lot of sad romantic flourishes to their texts. In short, bad Rilke is CHEESY. Black and cheesy.
It looks like 1899 was very 2009 in its own way, lol
The original emo boi
Das Stundenbuch (The Book of Hours) (1899-1903)
It's a longform poem in three books (more like chapters in terms of actual length - but for a poem it sure is LONG) about God and Life and ...
EMO
Yes, emo. You read that right. To me, there are two Rilkes: one is the brilliant penman of masterpieces like The Archaic Torso of Apollo.
In terms of music, one Rilke is Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
The other Rilke, though, the Rilke of the Book of Hours? He's My Chemical Romance.
No shade if My Chemical Romance is your thing. But I think we can agree it's not a band anyone would accuse of spawning amazing classics. Also, they are very emo. And add a lot of sad romantic flourishes to their texts. In short, bad Rilke is CHEESY. Black and cheesy.
It looks like 1899 was very 2009 in its own way, lol
The original emo boi
December 28, 2024
You have so mild a way of being
Singular insofar as Rilke presents God like a poor injured sparrow, one who must be nursed to health or built like a statue to vastness, rather than something to humble yourself in awe of. Intimate poems, written alone by candlelight with God a patient neighbour waiting to be called upon.
Although, as from a prison walled with hate,
each from his own self labors to be free,
the world yet holds a wonder, and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the wind, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the ageing alleys that reach out endlessly?
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life—who lives it really? God, do you?
March 21, 2018
I have never read a book of his work, only single poems here and there.
It's hard to describe but very beautiful and revealing.
On the right is the english and the left the german-I always find it intriguing.
“Put out my eyes, and I can see you still;
slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
and without any feet can go to you;
and tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
and if you set this brain of mine afire,
upon my blood I then will carry you.”
Very fast read.
Highly recommended.
It's hard to describe but very beautiful and revealing.
On the right is the english and the left the german-I always find it intriguing.
“Put out my eyes, and I can see you still;
slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
and without any feet can go to you;
and tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
and if you set this brain of mine afire,
upon my blood I then will carry you.”
Very fast read.
Highly recommended.
June 30, 2017
An all-time favorite, Poems from the Book of Hours is full of moving imagery, dreams, hopes, and fears. I have read a few different versions of these works and the translator does matter so choose your version wisely. Extinguish My Eyes, I Will Go On Seeing You is one poem that really stands out. It is about eternal love, religious and secular. It is about suffering and loyalty. It stays with the reader. What Will You Do, God, When I Die brings an interdependent perspective on God and Man and could be extended into a discussion about the socio-political dynamics of the Church.
February 5, 2023
This life - who lives it really? God, do you?
BEAUTIFUL poetry - truly musical and touching. Celebrating and mourning what it is to love and be alive.
However, these poems are written in the form of prayers, constantly invoking some sort of God, and, although they are not theological in meaning, the religiosity got a bit tiresome.
BEAUTIFUL poetry - truly musical and touching. Celebrating and mourning what it is to love and be alive.
However, these poems are written in the form of prayers, constantly invoking some sort of God, and, although they are not theological in meaning, the religiosity got a bit tiresome.
Read
June 1, 2022More just here to log this for my reading goal I’ve been falling behind on. Reviewing this (especially) and Wittgenstein’s personal journals feels wrong. All I’ll say is this: I love reading hyper-sensitive, spiritually-inclined Austrians.
June 18, 2023
“ I am the rest between two notes
Which, struck together, sound discordantly,
Because deaths note would claim a higher key.
But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,
Harmonious .
And the song continues sweet.”
God I love Rilke
Which, struck together, sound discordantly,
Because deaths note would claim a higher key.
But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,
Harmonious .
And the song continues sweet.”
God I love Rilke
March 6, 2024
really beautiful way of portraying a more unique relationship with religion, i feel like that is largely due to how honest rilke is here (with his questions and thoughts). it’s times like these that i wish my german was good enough to fluently read rilke poems in all their glory.
February 18, 2023
3.5, I like how Rilke describes spirituality and God. Some poems were certainly more impactful to me than others in their language and imagery.
April 5, 2023
I just don’t like rilkes god poetry. Great imagery though :)
January 27, 2024
4,5 (My first poem book by Rilke) Enjoyed it, liked a bunch of verses and felt inspired here and there. As I read it I felt a foreign peace comming over me.
July 26, 2024
It's hard to dislike rilke.
January 21, 2022
Now the hour bows down, it touches me, throbs
metallic, lucid and bold:
my senses are trembling. I feel my own power -
on the plastic day I lay hold.
Until I perceive it, no thing was complete,
but waited, hushed, unfulfilled.
My vision is ripe, to each glance like a bride
comes softly the thing that was willed.
There is nothing too small, but my tenderness paints
it large on a background of gold,
and I prize it, not knowing whose soul at the sight,
released, may unfold . . .
*
You, neighbour God, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe
and know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken. Give but a small sign.
I am quite near.
Between us there is but a narrow wall,
and by sheer chance; for it would take
merely a call from your lips or from mine
to break it down,
and that without a sound.
The wall is builded of your images.
They stand before you hiding you like names,
And when the light within me blazes high
that in my inmost soul I know you by,
the radiance is squandered on their frames.
And then my senses, which too soon grow lame,
exiled from you, must go their homeless way.
*
If only there were stillness, full, complete.
If all the random and approximate
were muted, with neighbours' laughter, for your sake,
and if the clamour that my senses make
did not confound the vigil I would keep -
Then in a thousandfold thought I could think
you out, even to your utmost brink,
and (while a smile endures) possess you, giving
you away, as though I were but giving thanks,
to all the living.
*
I read it in your word, and learn it from
the history of the gestures of your warm
wise hands, rounding themselves to form
and circumscribe the shapes that are to come.
Aloud you said: to live, and low: to die,
and you repeated, tirelessly: to be.
And yet there was no death till murder came.
Then through your perfect circles ran a rent
and a cry tore,
scattering the voices that not long before
had gently blent
to utter you,
to carry you,
bridge across the abyss -
And what they since have stammered
are the fragments only
of your old name.
*
I am, you anxious one. Do you not hear me
rush to claim you with each eager sense?
Now my feelings have found wings, and, circling,
whitely fly about your countenance.
Here my spirit in its dress of sillness
stands before you, - oh, do you not see?
In your glance does not my Maytime prayer
grow to ripeness as upon a tree?
Dreamer, it is I who am your dream.
But would you awake, I am your will,
and master of all splendour, and I grow
to a sphere, like stars poised high and still,
with time's singular city stretched below.
*
No, my life is not this precipitous hour
through which you see me passing at a run.
I stand before my background like a tree.
Of all my many mouths I am but one,
and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.
I am the rest between two notes
which, struck together, sounds discordantly,
because death's note would claim a higher key.
But in that dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,
harmonious.
And the song continues sweet.
*
If I had grown up in a land where days
were free from care and hours were delicate,
then I would have contrived a splendid fete
for you, and not have held you in the way
I sometimes do, tightly in fearful hands.
There I would have been bold to squander you,
you boundless Presence.
Like a ball
I would have flung you among all tossing joys,
so one might catch you,
and if you seemed to fall,
with both hands high would spring
toward you,
you thing of things.
I would have let you flash
forth like a sword.
From the most golden of all rings
I would have taken your fire and
reset it in a mounting that would hold it
over the whitest hand.
I would have painted you: not on the wall,
but upon very heaven from verge to verge,
and would have shaped you, as a giant would:
you, as a mountain, as a blazing fire,
as the simoon, grown from the desert's surge -
or
it may be, in very truth, I found
you once . . .
My friends are far away,
I scarcely hear their laughter any more;
and you: ah, you have fallen from the nest,
a fledgling, yellow-clawed and with big eyes:
I grieve for you.
(In my broad hand your tininess if lost).
And from the well I lift a drop
upon my finger, intent if you'll stretch
a thirsty throat for it, and then I hear
your heart and mine beating,
and both with fear.
*
In all these things I cherish as a brother
still it is you I find; seedlike you wait,
basking serenely in the narrowest compass,
and greatly give yourself in what is great.
This is the marvel of the play of forces,
that they so serve the things wherethrough they flow:
growing in roots, to dwindle in the tree-trunks,
and in the crowns like resurrection show.
*
We are all workmen: prentice, journeymen,
or master, building you - you towering nave.
And sometimes there will come to us a grave
wayfarer who like a radiance thrills
the souls of all our hundred artisans,
as tremblingly he shows us a new skill.
We climb up on the rocking scaffolding,
the hammers in our hands swing heavily,
until our foreheads feel the caressing wing
of a radiant hour that knows everything,
and hails from you as wind hails from the sea.
Then hammerstrokes sound, multitudinous,
and through the mountains echoes blast on blast.
Only at dusk we yield you up at last:
and slow your shaping contours dawn on us.
God, you are vast.
*
What will you do, God, when I die?
When I, your pitcher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
you lose you meaning, losing me.
Homeless without me, you will be
robbed of your welcome, warm and sweet.
I am your sandals: your tired feet
will wander bare for want of me.
Your mighty cloak will fall away.
Your glance that on my cheek was laid
and pillowed warm, will seek, dismayed,
the comfort that I offered once -
to lie, as sunset colours fade
in the cold lap of alien stones.
What will you do, God? I am afraid.
*
The first word that you ever spoke was: light.
Thus time began. For long you said no more.
Man was your second, and a frightening, word
(the sound of it still shrouds us in its night),
and then again you brooded as before.
But I am one who would not hear your third.
I often pray at night: Be but the dumb,
confined to gestures, growing quietly,
he whom the spirit moves in dreams, that he
may write on speechless brows the heavy sum
of silence, and on peaks for us to see.
Be you the shelter from the angry scorn
that violated the ineffable.
In very paradise night fell:
be you the herdsman with the horn,
that once was blown, but so they only tell.
*
The light shouts in your tree-tops, and the face
of all things becomes radiant and vain;
only at dusk do they find you again.
The twilight hour, the tenderness of space,
lays on a thousand heads a thousand hands,
and strangeness grows devout where they have lain.
With the gentlest of gestures you would hold
the world, thus only and not otherwise.
You lean from out its skies to capture earth,
and feel it underneath your mantle's folds.
You have so mild a way of being.
They
who name you loudly when they come to pray
forget your nearness. From your hands that tower
above us, mountainously, lo, there soars,
to give the law whereby our senses live,
dark-browned, your wordless power.
*
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still;
slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
and without any feet can go to you;
and tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
and if you set this brain of mine afire,
then on my blood I yet will carry you.
*
Although, as from a prison walled with hate,
each from his own self labours to be free,
the world yet holds a wonder, and how great!
ALL LIFE IS LIVED: now this comes home to me.
But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently
stand there, like some unfingered melody
that sleeps within a harp as day is going?
Is it the winds, across the waters blowing,
is it the branches, beckoning each to each,
is it the flowers, weaving fragrances,
the ageing alley that reach out endlessly
Is it the warm beasts, moving to and fro,
is it the birds, strange as they sail from view?
This life - who lives it really? God, do you?
*
You are the future, the great sunrise red
above the broad plains of eternity.
You are the cock-crow when time's night has fled,
You are the dew, the matins, and the maid,
the stranger and the mother, you are death.
You are the changeful shape that out of Fate
rears up in everlasting solitude,
the unlamented and the unacclaimed,
beyond describing as some savage wood.
You are the deep epitome of things
that keeps its being's secret with locked lip,
and shows itself to others otherwise:
to the ship, a haven - to the land, a ship.
*
The sovereigns of the world are old
and they will gave no heirs at all.
Death took their sons when they were small,
and their pale daughters soon resigned
to force frail crowns they could not hold.
The mob breaks these to bits of gold
that the world's master, shrewd and bold,
melts in the fire to enginery
that sullenly serves his desires,
but fortune is not in his hire.
The ore is homesick. It is eager
to leave the coins and turning wheels
that offer it a life so meagre.
From coffers and from factories
it would flow back into the veins
of gaping mountains whence it came,
that close upon it once again.
*
All will grow great and powerful again:
the seas be wrinkled and the land be plain,
the trees gigantic and the walls be low;
and in the valleys, strong and multiform,
a race of herdsmen and of farmers grow.
No churches to encircle God as though
he were a fugitive, and then bewail him
as if he were a captured wounded creature, -
all houses will prove friendly, there will be
a sense of boundless sacrifice prevailing
in dealing between men, in you, in me.
No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it,
but longing to degrade not even death;
we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends,
to feel its hands about us like a friend's.
*
Already ripening barberries grow red,
the ageing asters scarce breathe in their bed.
Who is not rich, with summer nearly done,
will never find a self that is his own.
Who is unable now to close his eyes,
certain that many visages within
wait slumbering until night shall begin
and in the darkness of his soul will rise,
is like an aged man whose strength is gone.
Nothing will touch him in the days to come,
and each even will cheat him and betray,
even you, my God. And you are like a stone,
that draws him to a lower depth each day.
*
Do not be troubled, God, though they say "mine"
of all things that permit it patiently.
They are like wind that lightly stroked the boughs
and says: My tree.
They hardly see
how all things glow they their hands seize upon,
so that they cannot touch
even the utmost fringe and not be singed.
They will say "mine" as one will sometimes call
the prince his friend in speech with villagers,
this prince being very great - and far away.
They call strange walls "mine," knowing not at all
who is the master of the house indeed.
They still say "mine," and claim possession, though
each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes;
a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses
as owner of the lightning and the sun.
And so they say: my life, my wife, my child,
my dog, well knowing all that they have styled
their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain
shapes foreign and unknown,
that blindly groping they must stumble on.
This truth, be sure, only the great discern,
who long for eyes. The other WILL not learn
that in the beggary of their wandering
they cannot claim a bond with any thing,
but, driven from possessions they have prized,
not by their own belongings recognized,
they can OWN wives no more than they own flowers,
whose life is alien and apart from ours.
God, do not lose your equilibrium.
Even he who loves you and discerns your face
in darkness, when he trembles like a light
you breathe upon, - he cannot own you quite.
And if at night one holds you closely pressed,
locked in his prayer so you cannot stray,
you are the guest
who comes, but not to stay.
God, who can hold you? To yourself alone
belonging, by no owner's hand disturbed,
you are like unripened wine that unperturbed
grows ever sweeter and is all its own.
April 4, 2025
Book club read. Really enjoyed ‘If I had grown up in a land where days’.
March 12, 2025
Beautiful poems of Rilke’s perspective and portraying his relationship with God
"We are because we are seen, we are because we are loved. The world it is beheld and loved into being”
“I am in the world to love the world”
"I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive."
"I would describe myself like a landscape I've studied at length, in detail; like a word I'm coming to understand"
" I am the dream you are dreaming. When you want to awaken, I am that wanting: I grow strong in the beauty you behold. And with the silence of stars I enfold your cities made by time."
"And God said to me, Write:
Leave the cruelty to kings.
Without that angel barring the way to love
there would be no bridge for me
into time.
And God said to me, Paint:
Time is the canvas
stretched by my pain:
the wounding of woman,
the brother’s betrayal,
the city’s sad bacchanals,
the madness of kings.
And God said to me, Go forth:
For I am king of time.
But to you I am only the shadowy one
who knows with you your loneliness
and sees through your eyes.
He sees through my eyes
in all ages."
"God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand."
"Just give me a little more time! I want to love the things as no one has thought to love them, until they're worthy of you and real"
"We are because we are seen, we are because we are loved. The world it is beheld and loved into being”
“I am in the world to love the world”
"I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive."
"I would describe myself like a landscape I've studied at length, in detail; like a word I'm coming to understand"
" I am the dream you are dreaming. When you want to awaken, I am that wanting: I grow strong in the beauty you behold. And with the silence of stars I enfold your cities made by time."
"And God said to me, Write:
Leave the cruelty to kings.
Without that angel barring the way to love
there would be no bridge for me
into time.
And God said to me, Paint:
Time is the canvas
stretched by my pain:
the wounding of woman,
the brother’s betrayal,
the city’s sad bacchanals,
the madness of kings.
And God said to me, Go forth:
For I am king of time.
But to you I am only the shadowy one
who knows with you your loneliness
and sees through your eyes.
He sees through my eyes
in all ages."
"God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand."
"Just give me a little more time! I want to love the things as no one has thought to love them, until they're worthy of you and real"
July 27, 2025
Acabe este libro hace no me acuerdo cuánto tiempo. Lo iba leyendo poco a poco, desde enero creo. Aunque sea un libro muy pequeño para ser leído en el tiempo que lo hice.
Es una suerte de plegaria en poema, una conversación/oda a la divinidad; puede ser dios, puede ser algo más allá. Para mí, captura la conversación de solo un lado que tenemos todos los humanos con el silencio: ese espacio vacío que se encuentra tanto en la palabra que pide como fuera de ella en lo indescifrable y sin respuesta. Puede llamarse, por eso, dios. Puede llamársele lenguaje. Con todas estas comparte características. Puede ser, también, cualquier espera, cualquier dolor prolongado que nos convierte en afinados escuchas de los atonales idiomas desconocidos del universo. Entre 9 y 6 meses perdí a mi abuelo y a mi abuelito. Empecé este libro poco después de perder a mi abuelo, poco antes de perder a mi abuelito. Mi plática con el vacío es incesante, pulsando al ritmo del dolor, sintonizada con mi respiración disconcordante entre presencia/ausencia e interior/exterior y una búsqueda de lo invisible en todo lo que veo. Árboles, sombras, mariposas, viento, esquinas, tinta.
El libro de las horas parece llenar esos silencios, la plegaria no dicha que zumba en los oídos y al interior el cada segundo del duelo, logra materializar ese silencio que se ha vuelto conversación, que acompaña y conforma a la búsqueda de sentido, que concretiza la divinidad de lo que no tiene respuesta pero que nos busca a nosotros los mortales tanto como nosotros lo buscamos.
Es una suerte de plegaria en poema, una conversación/oda a la divinidad; puede ser dios, puede ser algo más allá. Para mí, captura la conversación de solo un lado que tenemos todos los humanos con el silencio: ese espacio vacío que se encuentra tanto en la palabra que pide como fuera de ella en lo indescifrable y sin respuesta. Puede llamarse, por eso, dios. Puede llamársele lenguaje. Con todas estas comparte características. Puede ser, también, cualquier espera, cualquier dolor prolongado que nos convierte en afinados escuchas de los atonales idiomas desconocidos del universo. Entre 9 y 6 meses perdí a mi abuelo y a mi abuelito. Empecé este libro poco después de perder a mi abuelo, poco antes de perder a mi abuelito. Mi plática con el vacío es incesante, pulsando al ritmo del dolor, sintonizada con mi respiración disconcordante entre presencia/ausencia e interior/exterior y una búsqueda de lo invisible en todo lo que veo. Árboles, sombras, mariposas, viento, esquinas, tinta.
El libro de las horas parece llenar esos silencios, la plegaria no dicha que zumba en los oídos y al interior el cada segundo del duelo, logra materializar ese silencio que se ha vuelto conversación, que acompaña y conforma a la búsqueda de sentido, que concretiza la divinidad de lo que no tiene respuesta pero que nos busca a nosotros los mortales tanto como nosotros lo buscamos.
April 30, 2024
Meravellós. Poc editat, aquest poemari de Rilke és un tresor, un regal, la troballa de la cloïssa que conté la perla més brillant en un mar poblat. Quina bellesa, i en quina ambigüitat es mou Rilke tota l'estona per permetre'ns veure el contorn, per moments, d'aquesta figura divina que voldríem reduir a la figura d'algun Déu monoteista de la qual Rilke no deixa d'escapar, d'expandir i retrobar en la bellesa immanent al món. Fantàstic.
"They who name you loudly when they come to pray know not your nearness."
"All life is LIVED: now this comes home to me. But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently stand there, like some unfingered melody sleeping within a harp as day is going? Is it the winds across the water blowing, is it the branches beckoning each to each, is it the flowers weaving fragrances, the ageing alleys stretching endlessly? Is it the warm beasts moving to and fro, the birds in alien flight that sail from view? This life—who lives it really? God, do you?"
"No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it, but longing to degrade not even death; we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends, to feel its hands about us like a friend's."
"Do you not hear me rush to claim you with each eager sense? Now my feelings have found wings, and, circling, whitely fly about your countenance."
"They who name you loudly when they come to pray know not your nearness."
"All life is LIVED: now this comes home to me. But who, then, lives it? Things that patiently stand there, like some unfingered melody sleeping within a harp as day is going? Is it the winds across the water blowing, is it the branches beckoning each to each, is it the flowers weaving fragrances, the ageing alleys stretching endlessly? Is it the warm beasts moving to and fro, the birds in alien flight that sail from view? This life—who lives it really? God, do you?"
"No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it, but longing to degrade not even death; we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends, to feel its hands about us like a friend's."
"Do you not hear me rush to claim you with each eager sense? Now my feelings have found wings, and, circling, whitely fly about your countenance."
September 12, 2017
I was unable to resist buying this tiny little beautiful book in Brooklyn on my last day of my NYC trip for Book Riot Live, despite the fact that my bags were already packed full to overflowing. With books. I mean, it's so tiny, right? I just added it to all of the books in my purse.
It read it as a change of pace during Dewey's readathon. I'd been reading through The Familiar for hours and was starting to despair that I'd never finish a book again, so I grabbed this book and went on a walk. Of course the type in this book was so tiny that it made walking and reading difficult (even for a pro like me), but it liked being read out of doors, so I sat out in the yard to finish it.
I don't think that I've read Rilke before, so this was a nice (if brief) introduction. These poems (translations) are lovely and challenging. They speak to the soul. I can see myself reading them over and over. Indeed, it took me forever to write this review because I kept doing just that. These are definitely the type of poems that reward re-reading.
I shall have to seek out more Rilke. I am glad that I was tempted (and did not resist) this beautiful little book.
It read it as a change of pace during Dewey's readathon. I'd been reading through The Familiar for hours and was starting to despair that I'd never finish a book again, so I grabbed this book and went on a walk. Of course the type in this book was so tiny that it made walking and reading difficult (even for a pro like me), but it liked being read out of doors, so I sat out in the yard to finish it.
I don't think that I've read Rilke before, so this was a nice (if brief) introduction. These poems (translations) are lovely and challenging. They speak to the soul. I can see myself reading them over and over. Indeed, it took me forever to write this review because I kept doing just that. These are definitely the type of poems that reward re-reading.
I shall have to seek out more Rilke. I am glad that I was tempted (and did not resist) this beautiful little book.
April 11, 2018
Poems from the Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke is not read once, then shelved. It is something you keep handy on a table, a countertop; something you find under the bed where it fell when you were reading before sleep. You read it in bits and fits. It always slows you down, and makes you wonder how you failed to see God and things just that way. The English translations are lovely. The German sings. Who else feels God-made-man with him so closely:
"You, Neighbor God, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe
and know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken, Give but a small sign.
I am quite near..."
Who else checks in to make sure God is doing okay?
READ THIS BOOK ... NO, INHALE IT WITH A DEEP CLEANSING BREATH.
"You, Neighbor God, if sometimes in the night
I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe
and know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there
to reach it to you, groping in the dark.
Always I hearken, Give but a small sign.
I am quite near..."
Who else checks in to make sure God is doing okay?
READ THIS BOOK ... NO, INHALE IT WITH A DEEP CLEANSING BREATH.
December 25, 2018
What a beautiful collection of poems from Rilke. The translations are lovely (I think—I don’t actually speak German, but they sound melodic and lovely in English). My personal faith falls somewhere along Rilke’s—I have a general disdain for organized faith that “traps” God, as he says, but still have some faith of my own. The way he explains this and suggests that God may both already be perfect but also still growing with us is both moving and provoking. The layers of nuance and and intriguing questions in that line of thought are beautiful juxtaposed with the almost childlike innocence Rilke possesses when he asks, “What will you do God, when I die?”
If you’ve never read Rilke’s poetry, this collection written when he was young-ish, is a great place to start.
If you’ve never read Rilke’s poetry, this collection written when he was young-ish, is a great place to start.
January 24, 2023
I don't understand why people are tagging it religion while the book specifically explains that the God the poet keeps referring to is art and not the actual God. Anyway, great book. I love reading bilingual poetry books because it's interesting to compare the original and the translation. Although I didn't know German in this instance so I could only get pieces and bits. The translator kepted the rhymes in, even if it didn't make sense with the English language. While it makes for a tough reading sometimes, it highlights the original poet's words and intentions. The deliberate errors are the highlighters of the poetry, showing you the rough and raw emotions swirling in each words. It's captivating and I definitely recommend you to check this out.
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