Death
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize, Unbearable pain throughout this body’s fabric: As I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee: The wood that long resisted the advancing flames
Night (This night, agitated by the growing storm)
This night, agitated by the growing storm, How it has suddenly expanded its dimensions, That ordinarily would have gone unnoticed, Like a cloth folded, and hidden in the folds of time. Where the stars
The Voices
The rich and fortunate do well to keep silent, For no one cares to know who and what they are. But those in need must reveal themselves, Must say: I am blind, Or: I’m
Childhood
It would be good to give much thought, before You try to find words for something so lost, For those long childhood afternoons you knew That vanished so completely and why? We’re still reminded
Adam
High above he stands, beside the many Saintly figures fronting the cathedral’s Gothic tympanum, close by the window Called the rose, and looks astonished at his Own deification which placed him there. Erect and
Interior Portrait
You don’t survive in me Because of memories; Nor are you mine because Of a lovely longing’s strength. What does make you present Is the ardent detour That a slow tenderness Traces in my
The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: I
Breathing: you invisible poem! Complete Interchange of our own Essence with world-space. You counterweight In which I rythmically happen. Single wave-motion whose Gradual sea I am: You, most inclusive of all our possible seas-
What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space
What birds plunge through is not the intimate space, In which you see all Forms intensified. (In the Open, denied, you would lose yourself, Would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and
Woman In Love
That is my window. Just now I have so softly wakened. I thought that I would float. How far does my life reach, And where does the night begin I could think that everything
The Song Of The Beggar
I am always going from door to door, Whether in rain or heat, And sometimes I will lay my right ear in The palm of my right hand. And as I speak my voice
Exposed On The Cliffs Of The Heart
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there, Look: the last village of words and, higher, (but how tiny) still one last Farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it? Exposed
Eve
Look how she stands, high on the steep facade Of the cathedral, near the window-rose, Simply, holding in her hand the apple, Judged for all time as the guiltless-guilty For the growing fruit her
Heartbeat
Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart Which safely exists in the center of all things? His giant heartbeat is diverted in us Into little pulses. And his giant grief Is, like
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ Hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly Pressed me against his heart, I would perish In the embrace of his stronger existence.
Little Tear-Vase
Other vessels hold wine, other vessels hold oil Inside the hollowed-out vault circumscribed by their clay. I, as smaller measure, and as the slimmest of all, Humbly hollow myself so that just a few