Home ⇒ 📌Rainer Maria Rilke ⇒ Loneliness
Loneliness
Being apart and lonely is like rain.
It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains;
From flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs
To heaven, which is its old abode.
And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city.
It rains down on us in those twittering
Hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn,
And when two bodies who have found nothing,
Dissapointed and depressed, roll over;
And when two people who despise eachother
Have to sleep together in one bed-
That is when loneliness receives the rivers…
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Loneliness I pause midway in the in the whirl, Of deadlines, things undone, And average the sadness and joys – There remains only loneliness, Of which I see no cure, No bitter palliatives, no anodyne. We remain in life’s journey, Like loners sitting depressed, On solitary park benches, or, Standing in balconies, staring, Loneliness gnawing at […]...
- Loneliness The last year’s leaves are on the beech: The twigs are black; the cold is dry; To deeps byond the deepest reach The Easter bells enlarge the sky. O ordered metal clatter-clang! Is yours the song the angels sang? You fill my heart with joy and grief – Belief! Belief! And unbelief… And, though you […]...
- Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
- Study Of Loneliness A guardian of long-distance conduits in the desert? A one-man crew of a fortress in the sand? Whoever he was. At dawn he saw furrowed mountains The color of ashes, above the melting darkness, Saturated with violet, breaking into fluid rouge, Till they stood, immense, in the orange light. Day after day. And, before he […]...
- The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
- Love's Loneliness Old fathers, great-grandfathers, Rise as kindred should. If ever lover’s loneliness Came where you stood, Pray that Heaven protect us That protect your blood. The mountain throws a shadow, Thin is the moon’s horn; What did we remember Under the ragged thorn? Dread has followed longing, And our hearts are torn....
- Loneliness Now it is Loneliness who comes at night Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed. Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread, I watch her softly blowing out the light. Motionless sitting, neither left or right She turns, and weary, weary droops her head. She, too, is old; she, too, has […]...
- Post-Vacation Tristesse The Jumbo Jet has barely shuddered off The ground, and I’m depressed. My scuba mask And fins, my fly rod and beach hat Crush each other in an overhead locker Dark as the bedroom closet they’re returning to. Already the week’s good times melt Together like caramels in a hot car. My vow to “Do […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
- Sunset Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors Which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you One part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth. Leaving you, not really belonging to either, Not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent, Not […]...
- Alarm Clocks When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm Across green fields and yellow hills of hay The little twittering birds laugh in his way And poise triumphant on his shining arm. He bears a sword of flame but not to harm The wakened life that feels his quickening sway And barnyard voices shrilling “It […]...
- Dawn Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat. Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar. We have been here for ever: even yet A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more. The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet With a night’s foetor. There are two hours more; Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 04: 07: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01: The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive […]...
- There is another Loneliness There is another Loneliness That many die without Not want of friend occasions it Or circumstances of Lot But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought And whoso it befall Is richer than could be revealed By mortal numeral...
- John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
- The Loneliness One dare not sound The Loneliness One dare not sound And would as soon surmise As in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny The Horror not to be surveyed But skirted in the Dark With Consciousness suspended And […]...
- The Gardener IV: Ah Me Ah me, why did they build my House by the road to the market Town? They moor their laden boats near My trees. They come and go and wander at Their will. I sit and watch them; my time Wears on. Turn them away I cannot. And Thus my days pass by. Night and day […]...
- Baltic Fog Notes (Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas. I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff. Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon. Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky, A night harbor, blue dusk […]...
- Worm Either Way If you live along with all the other people And are just like them, and conform, and are nice You’re just a worm And if you live with all the other people And you don’t like them and won’t be like them and won’t conform Then you’re just the worm that has turned, In either […]...
- The Plunge I would bathe myself in strangeness: These comforts heaped upon me, smother me! I burn, I scald so for the new, New friends, new faces, Places! Oh to be out of this, This that is all I wanted – save the new. And you, Love, you the much, the more desired! Do I not loathe […]...
- Brothers, let us glorify freedom's twilight Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight – The great, darkening year. Into the seething waters of the night Heavy forests of nets disappear. O Sun, judge, people, your light Is rising over sombre years Let us glorify the deadly weight The people’s leader lifts with tears. Let us glorify the dark burden of fate, Power’s […]...
- Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
- Parted Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells Day’s midnight end. And from the day that’s over No flashes of delight I can recover; But only dreary winter streets, and faces […]...
- Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
- Blue Island Intersection SIX street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six ends of streets and no sleep for them all day. The people and wagons come and go, out and in. Triangles […]...
- An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee, He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see. He is a man of genius bright, And in him his congregation does delight, Because they find him to be honest and plain, Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain. He preaches in a […]...
- The Choral Union He staggered in from night and frost and fog And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came To hear-he couldn’t call to mind the name – But he’d been given a ticket for the show, And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. The […]...
- Houses People who are afraid of themselves Multiply themselves into families And so divide themselves And so become less afraid. People who might have to go out Into clanging strangers’ laughter, Crowd under roofs, make compacts To no more than smile at each other. People who might meet their own faces Or surprise their own voices […]...
- Marsh Hymns Between Dawn and Sunrise. Were silver pink, and had a soul, Which soul were shy, which shyness might A visible influence be, and roll Through heaven and earth ’twere thou, O light! O rhapsody of the wraith of red, O blush but yet in prophecy, O sun-hint that hath overspread Sky, marsh, my soul, and […]...
- Hours Continuing Long HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted, Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands; Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries; […]...
- Doc Hill I went up and down the streets Here and there by day and night, Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. Do you know why? My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs. And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them. Sweet […]...
- The Starling “‘I can’t get Out’, said the starling.” Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’. Forever the impenetrable wall Of self confines my poor rebellious soul, I never see the towering white clouds roll Before a sturdy wind, save through the small Barred window of my jail. I live a thrall With all my outer life a clipped, square hole, […]...
- Proud and Beautiful AFTER you have spent all the money modistes and manicures and mannikins will take for fixing you over into a thing the people on the streets call proud and beautiful, After the shops and fingers have worn out all they have and know and can hope to have and know for the sake of making […]...
- Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust In shimmering exhaust Searching to slake Its fever in ocean Will play and be idle or else it will bust. The swallow […]...
- Black Oaks Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, Or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance And comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays Carp and whistle all day in the branches, without The push of the wind. But to tell the truth after a […]...
- Sunrise You can Die for it- An idea, Or the world. People Have done so, Brilliantly, Letting Their small bodies be bound To the stake, Creating An unforgettable Fury of light. But This morning, Climbing the familiar hills In the familiar Fabric of dawn, I thought Of China, And India And Europe, and I thought How […]...
- Pasa Thalassa Thalassa “The sea is everywhere the sea.” I Gone-faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember? Gone for a decade, they say: never a word or a sign. Gone with his hard red face that only his laughter could wrinkle, Down where men go to be still, by the old way of the sea. […]...
- Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
« Hymn 2