Outside the day was one of green and blue,
With touches of a luminous glowing red,
Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
With touches of a luminous glowing red,
Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
Rilke - Poems
Here the words of men are only
fragile bridges above their real life. "
The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.
* * * * *
In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
Advent:
"That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
To have no home in the present.
And these are wishes: gentle dialogues
Of the poor hours with eternity. "
With _Das Buch der Bilder_ the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
depths of myth _The Kings in Legends_, or whether we read from _The
Chronicle of a Monk_ the awe-inspiring description of _The Last Judgment
Day_, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see _The Maidens at
Confirmation_, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
finality of the typical.
It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer. " Hauptmann,
like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
* * * * *
In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
_The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding
Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical
gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this
concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
expression:
"Kings in old legends seem
Like mountains rising in the evening light.
They blind all with their gleam,
Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
Their robes are edged with bands
Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
With richly jeweled hands
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords. "
There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to
concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like
"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
in all nature.
In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das
Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
prayer of reconciliation and triumph.
_The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in
the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of
Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although
the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book
of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book
of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends
reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning
with the lines:
"I live my life in circles that grow wide
And endlessly unroll. "
Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.
There are poems in _The Book of Pilgrimage_ of the stillness of a
whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
silent world:
"By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream
That like a whisper floats about all men,
The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
After the hour has struck, to close again.
And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends
So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise. "
The last part of _The Book of Hours_, _The Book of Poverty and Death_,
is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
or created in the domain of art.
In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
significance of Rilke's _Book of Hours_. A distinguished Scandinavian
writer has pronounced _Das Stunden-Buch_ one of the supreme literary
achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
prayer.
In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: _The Sketch of Malte
Laurids Brigge_.
* * * * *
In _New Poems_ (1907) and _New Poems, Second Part_ (1908) the historical
figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
human destiny. _Abishag_ presents the contrast between the dawning and
the fading life; _David Singing Before Saul_ shows the impatience of
awakening ambition, and _Joshua_ is the man who forces even God to do
his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
poems _Eranna to Sappho_, _Lament for Antinous_, _Early Apollo_ and the
_Archaic Torso of Apollo_.
The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
important among which are _The Cathedral_, _God in the Middle Ages_,
_Saint Sebastian_ personifying martyrdom, and _The Rose Window_, whose
glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
Modern Paris is often the background of the _New Poems_, and the crass
play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.
Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of _The Book of
Pictures_ is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these _New Poems_ are not
quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
_The Spanish Dancer_, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.
* * * * *
Many of the themes in the _New Poems_ bear testimony to the fact that
Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
melancholy beauty entered into his own work.
More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The _New Poems_
bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
of a friend and that of an artist.
One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
listening to some distant music.
From no other book of his, not excepting _The Book of Hours_, can we
deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.
Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
"power of servitude in all nature. " For this reason the book on Rodin is
far more than a purely aesthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name. " And
he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
in just this renunciation lay his triumph--for Life entered into his
work. "
Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.
* * * * *
Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
H. T.
NEW YORK CITY,
AUTUMN, 1918.
FIRST POEMS
EVENING
The bleak fields are asleep,
My heart alone wakes;
The evening in the harbour
Down his red sails takes.
Night, guardian of dreams,
Now wanders through the land;
The moon, a lily white,
Blossoms within her hand.
MARY VIRGIN
How came, how came from out thy night
Mary, so much light
And so much gloom:
Who was thy bridegroom?
Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot
That thou the same art not
Who came to me
In thy Virginity.
I am still so blossoming, so young.
How shall I go on tiptoe
From childhood to Annunciation
Through the dim twilight
Into thy Garden.
THE BOOK OF PICTURES
PRESAGING
I am like a flag unfurled in space,
I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,
While the things beneath are not yet stirring,
While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys
And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--
Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea
And expand and withdraw into myself
And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
AUTUMN
The leaves fall, fall as from far,
Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent.
And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
From out the stars into the Solitude.
Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
And lo! the other one:--it is the law.
But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
SILENT HOUR
Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
Weeps without cause in the world
Weeps over me.
Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
Laughs without cause in the night
Laughs at me.
Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
Wanders in vain in the world
Wanders to me.
Whoever dies somewhere in the world
Dies without cause in the world
Looks at me.
THE ANGELS
They all have tired mouths
And luminous, illimitable souls;
And a longing (as if for sin)
Trembles at times through their dreams.
They all resemble one another,
In God's garden they are silent
Like many, many intervals
In His mighty melody.
But when they spread their wings
They awaken the winds
That stir as though God
With His far-reaching master hands
Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
SOLITUDE
Solitude is like a rain
That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
It floats remote across the far-off plain
Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
When men with quiet hatred burning deep
Together in a common bed must sleep--
Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan . . .
KINGS IN LEGENDS
Kings in old legends seem
Like mountains rising in the evening light.
They blind all with their gleam,
Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
Their robes are edged with bands
Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
With richly jeweled hands
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
THE KNIGHT
The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
Into the roar of the world.
And here is Life: the vines in the vale
And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
God's flags afloat on every wall
In a thousand streets unfurled.
Beneath the armour of the Knight
Behind the chain's black links
Death crouches and thinks and thinks:
"When will the sword's blade sharp and bright
Forth from the scabbard spring
And cut the network of the cloak
Enmeshing me ring on ring--
When will the foe's delivering stroke
Set me free
To dance
And sing? "
THE BOY
I wish I might become like one of these
Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
With torches flaming out like loosened hair
On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.
I wish to stand as on a boat and dare
The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
In darkness but with helmet made of gold
That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,
Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,
Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.
One stands by me and blows a blast apace
On his great flashing trumpet and the sound
Shrieks through the vast black solitude around
Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.
The houses fall behind us on their knees,
Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
The great squares yieled to us and them we seize--
And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.
INITIATION
Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,
Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,
And far in the dim distance leave thy home,
Whosoever thou art.
Lift thine eyes which lingering see
The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree
That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,
And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise
Like words that in the silence clearer grow;
As they unfold before thy will to know
Gently withdraw thine eyes--
THE NEIGHBOUR
Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?
In many foreign cities, far away,
Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.
Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?
Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed
Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,
Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?
Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?
Why am I the neighbour always
Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?
Life is more heavy--thy song says--
Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.
SONG OF THE STATUE
Who so loveth me that he
Will give his precious life for me?
I shall be set free from the stone
If some one drowns for me in the sea,
I shall have life, life of my own,--
For life I ache.
I long for the singing blood,
The stone is so still and cold.
I dream of life, life is good.
Will no one love me and be bold
And me awake?
-------------------------------
I weep and weep alone,
Weep always for my stone.
What joy is my blood to me
If it ripens like red wine?
It cannot call back from the sea
The life that was given for mine,
Given for Love's sake.
MAIDENS. I
Others must by a long dark way
Stray to the mystic bards,
Or ask some one who has heard them sing
Or touch the magic chords.
Only the maidens question not
The bridges that lead to Dream;
Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls
On a silver vase agleam.
The maidens' doors of Life lead out
Where the song of the poet soars,
And out beyond to the great world--
To the world beyond the doors.
MAIDENS. II
Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
How solitary and remote you are,
As night is lighted by one high bright star
They draw light from the distance where you dwell.
For poet you must always maiden be
Even though his eyes the woman in you wake
Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,
Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.
Within his garden let him wait alone
Where benches stand expectant in the shade
Within the chamber where the lyre was played
Where he received you as the eternal One.
Go! It grows dark--your voice and form no more
His senses seek; he now no longer sees
A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
Along the pathway where it gleamed before.
He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
And he loves much the silent chamber where
Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.
The softly stealing echo comes again
From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;
And many see you there--so his thought runs--
And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.
THE BRIDE
Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!
Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;
The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps
Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,
Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out . . .
AUTUMNAL DAY
Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.
Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
Give to them two more burning days and press
The last sweetness into the heavy wine.
He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
Who is alone will now remain alone;
He will awake, will read, will letters write
Through the long day and in the lonely night;
And restless, solitary, he will rove
Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.
MOONLIGHT NIGHT
South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above
Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.
From the old tower the hours fall heavily
Into the dark as though into the sea--
A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,
Then for a while void silence fills the air;
And then a violin (from God knows where)
Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love . . . Oh Love . . .
IN APRIL
Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
The darkness hung like richness in the room
When like a dream the mother entered there
And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air
Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.
The room betrayed the mother--so she felt--
She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here? "
And with a gesture that he held most dear
Down for a moment by his side she knelt.
Toward the piano they both shyly glanced
For she would sing to him on many a night,
And the child seated in the fading light
Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow
Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent
And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
Moving as though against a drift of snow.
DEATH
Before us great Death stands
Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine
To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
And ecstasy through all our being leaps--
Death bows his head and weeps.
THE ASHANTEE
(Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
No vision of exotic southern countries,
No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
Whirling from out their falling draperies
To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;
No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,
No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids
Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,
No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.
Only mouths widening with a still broad smile
Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
At white men, at their vanity and guile,
An understanding that fills one with fear.
The beasts in cages much more loyal are,
Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,
Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.
They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
Consumed by longings over which they brood,
Oblivious of time, without desire,
Alone and lost in their great solitude.
REMEMBRANCE
Expectant and waiting you muse
On the great rare thing which alone
To enhance your life you would choose:
The awakening of the stone,
The deeps where yourself you would lose.
In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
And you think of countries once crossed,
Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
Of the women that you have lost.
And it comes to you then at last--
And you rise for you are aware
Of a year in the far off past
With its wonder and fear and prayer.
MUSIC
What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole
Like wandering steps, like a whisper--then mute;
What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul
Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,
It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;
Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
Is the longing that through your music sighs.
Let your flute be still and your soul float through
Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,
For here your song lived and it wisely grew
Before it was forced into melody.
Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,
Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!
Now it no longer steals over my walls--
But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.
MAIDEN MELANCHOLY
A young knight comes into my mind
As from some myth of old.
He came! You felt yourself entwined
As a great storm would round you wind.
He went! A blessing undefined
Seemed left, as when church-bells declined
And left you wrapt in prayer.
You fain would cry aloud--but bind
Your scarf about you and tear-blind
Weep softly in its fold.
A young knight comes into my mind
Full armored forth to fare.
His smile was luminously kind
Like glint of ivory enshrined,
Like a home longing undivined,
Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,
Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,
Like moonlight silver when combined
With a loved book's rare gold.
MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION
(Paris in May, 1903)
The white veiled maids to confirmation go
Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;
Their childhood they are leaving now behind:
The future will be different, they know.
Oh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!
The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,
And sadly passes by the afternoon . . .
Like resurrection were the garments white
The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide
Into the church, as cool as silk inside,
With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:
The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.
Then through the silence the great song rose high
Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
Then luminously, gently down it poured--
Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.
The wind through the white garments softly stirred
And they grew vari-coloured in each fold
And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold
And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,
And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold
Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.
Outside the day was one of green and blue,
With touches of a luminous glowing red,
Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
And singing sounded through the far off trees.
It was as though garlands crowned everything
And all things were touched softly by the sun;
And many windows opened one by one
And the light trembled on them glistening.
THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
And lose myself--for to you I belong.
The hope that hitherto I have denied
Imperious comes to me as from your side
Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
Those times: the times when I was quite alone
By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
My silence was the quiet of a stone
Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.
But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
Something within me has been freed--something
That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
Which rises now within me and commands
And gives my poor warm life into your hands
Who know not what I was that Yesterday.
PONT DU CARROUSEL
Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers
As though of nameless realms the boundary stone
About which circle distant starry hours.
He seems the center around which stars glow
While all earth's ostentations surge below.
Immovably and silently he stands
Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;
Past fathomless dark depths that he commands
A shallow generation drifting goes. . . .
MADNESS
She thinks: I am--Have you not seen?
Who are you then, Marie?
I am a Queen, I am a Queen!
To your knee, to your knee!
And then she weeps: I was--a child--
Who were you then, Marie?
Know you that I was no man's child,
Poor and in rags--said she.
And then a Princess I became
To whom men bend their knees;
To princes things are not the same
As those a beggar sees.
And those things which have made you great
Came to you, tell me, when?
One night, one night, one night quite late,
Things became different then.
I walked the lane which presently
With strung chords seemed to bend;
Then Marie became Melody
And danced from end to end.
The people watched with startled mien
And passed with frightened glance
For all know that only a Queen
May dance in the lanes: dance! . . .
LAMENT
Oh! All things are long passed away and far.
A light is shining but the distant star
From which it still comes to me has been dead
A thousand years . . . In the dim phantom boat
That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
A clock just struck within some house remote.
Which house? --I long to still my beating heart.
Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray . . .
Of all the stars there must be far away
A single star which still exists apart.
And I believe that I should know the one
Which has alone endured and which alone
Like a white City that all space commands
At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.
SYMBOLS
From infinite longings finite deeds rise
As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
And trembling from their lack of power descend--
So through the falling torrent of our fears
Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
NEW POEMS
EARLY APOLLO
As when at times there breaks through branches bare
A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,
About this poet-head a splendour rare
Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.
There is as yet no shadow in his glance,
Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;
But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,
A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
And single petals one by one will fall
O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
--The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile
As though a song were rising there the while.
THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
We still remember! The same as of yore
All that has happened once again must be.
As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--
It was like that--your light, small breasts you bore,
And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.
That god--
who was the wanderer, the slim
Despoiler of fair women; he--the wise,--
But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
Who cast a shadow over your young limb
While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.
THE POET
You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,
Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;
Without you void would be my day and night,
Without you I'll not capture my great song.
I have no earthly spot where I can live,
I have no love, I have no household fane,
And all the things to which myself I give
Impoverish me with richness they attain.
THE PANTHER
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.
GROWING BLIND
Among all the others there sat a guest
Who sipped her tea as if one apart,
And she held her cup not quite like the rest;
Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.
When the group of people arose at last
And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
As lingeringly through the rooms they passed
I saw that she followed alone.
Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
Before a throng on a festal night
She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes
Were like pools which reflected light.
She followed on slowly after the last
As though some object must be passed by,
And yet as if were it once but passed
She would no longer walk but fly.
THE SPANISH DANCER
As a lit match first flickers in the hands
Before it flames, and darts out from all sides
Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
Of spectators--she, quivering, glowing stands
Poised tensely for the dance--then forward glides
And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.
Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,
And with a daring art at her command
Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.
And then, as though the fire fainter grows,
She gathers up the flame--again it glows,
As with proud gesture and imperious air
She flings it to the earth; and it lies there
Furiously flickering and crackling still--
Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.
OFFERING
My body glows in every vein and blooms
To fullest flower since I first knew thee,
My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;
Who art thou then--thou who awaitest me?
When from the past I draw myself the while
I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;
I only know the radiance of thy smile,
Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.
Through childhood's years I wandered unaware
Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests
To offer thee, as on an altar fair
That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair
And wreathed by the blossoms of thy breasts.
LOVE SONG
When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
How shall I tune it then to other things?
O! That some spot in darkness could be found
That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.
But everything that touches you and me
Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
O! Sweet song--
ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
But from his torso gleaming light is shed
As from a candelabrum; inward bent
His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
There is no spot that does not bind you fast
And transport you back, back to a far past.
THE BOOK OF HOURS
_The Book of A Monk's Life_
I live my life in circles that grow wide
And endlessly unroll,
I may not reach the last, but on I glide
Strong pinioned toward my goal.
About the old tower, dark against the sky,
The beat of my wings hums,
I circle about God, sweep far and high
On through milleniums.
Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
Many have painted her. But there was one
Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
When he was suffering she came to him,
And all the heavy pain within his heart
Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
A trembling smile softly begins to dawn . . .
Though angels with seven candles light the place
You cannot read the secret of her face.
In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
And I dream of young Titians and of others
In which the God with shining radiance glows.
But though my vigil constantly I keep
My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
My branches only are swayed by the wind.
Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
Against thee all my surging senses sing?
About thy face in circles drawing near
My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
But when thou art awake I am thy Will
Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
Expanding like far space star-lit and still
Into the distant mystic realm of Time.
I love my life's dark hours
In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
Or letters old, I magically steep
Myself in days gone by: again I give
Myself unto the past:--again I live.
Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space . . .
Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
Are lost once more in sadness and in song.
_The Book of Pilgrimage_
By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
That like a whisper floats about all men,
The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
After the hour has struck, to close again.
And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.
All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
And those who find would bind Thee
To gesture and to form.
But I would comprehend Thee
As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
Thou growest with my maturity,
Thou Art in calm and storm.
I ask of Thee no vanity
To evidence and prove Thee.
Thou Wert in eons old.
Perform no miracles for me,
But justify Thy laws to me
Which, as the years pass by me.
All soundlessly unfold.
In a house was one who arose from the feast
And went forth to wander in distant lands,
Because there was somewhere far off in the East
A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.
In another house was the one who had died,
Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
And ever within the walls did abide--
For out of the house he could no more pass.
And his children set forth to seek for the spot
Where stands the great Church which he forgot.
Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
And without feet I still can follow you,
And without voice I still can to you call.
Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
Through all the singing currents of my blood.
In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
To seek you over the wide world I roam,
For all abundance is but meager measure
Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.
Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?
My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
To find you before day to night has drifted;
I reach out into space to seek you there . . .
Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
You come, and over earth a magic vesture
Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.
_The Book of Poverty and Death_
Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
But that had once from Life received all this
Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
A thing apart, a parable in stone.
Alone Thou wanderest through space,
Profound One with the hidden face;
Thou art Poverty's great rose,
The eternal metamorphose
Of gold into the light of sun.
Thou art the mystic homeless One;
Into the world Thou never came,
Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!
A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
Make me a listener at Thy stone,
Give to me vision and then wake me
Upon Thy oceans all alone.
Thy rivers' courses let me follow
Where they leap the crags in their flight
And where at dusk in caverns hollow
They croon to music of the night.
Send me far into Thy barren land
Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
August symbols of unlived lives.
There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
And behind them a blind man goes:
With him I will walk till day is done
Up the pathway that no one knows . . .
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fragile bridges above their real life. "
The great symbols of Solitude and of Death enter into the poet's work.
* * * * *
In the first decade of the new century Rilke reached the height of his
art and with a few exceptions the poems represented in this volume are
selected from the poems which were published between the years 1900 and
1908. The ascent toward the acme of Rilke's art after the year 1900 is
as rapid as it is precipitous. Only a few years previous we read in
Advent:
"That is longing: To dwell in the flux of things,
To have no home in the present.
And these are wishes: gentle dialogues
Of the poor hours with eternity. "
With _Das Buch der Bilder_ the dream is ended, the veil of mist is
lifted and before us are revealed pictures and images that rise before
our eyes in clear colourful contours. Whether the poet conjures from the
depths of myth _The Kings in Legends_, or whether we read from _The
Chronicle of a Monk_ the awe-inspiring description of _The Last Judgment
Day_, or whether in Paris on a Palm Sunday we see _The Maidens at
Confirmation_, the pictures presented stand out with the clearness and
finality of the typical.
It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to Gerhart
Hauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer. " Hauptmann,
like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures and
his art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of the
thought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener or
reader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entire
social class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
* * * * *
In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what
might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to
the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems
an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness.
_The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding
Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical
gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which
they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this
concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme
expression:
"Kings in old legends seem
Like mountains rising in the evening light.
They blind all with their gleam,
Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
Their robes are edged with bands
Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
With richly jeweled hands
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords. "
There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to
concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely
lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like
"the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its
aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in
the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent
in all nature.
In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from
weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As
the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go
forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from
within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper
understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das
Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates
these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted
prayer of reconciliation and triumph.
_The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in
the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of
Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although
the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book
of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In
this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book
of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends
reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained
by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary
force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning
with the lines:
"I live my life in circles that grow wide
And endlessly unroll. "
Through the grey cell of the young Monk there flash in luminous
magnificence the colours of the great renaissance masters, for he feels
in Titian, in Michelangelo, in Raphael the same fervour that animates
him; they, too, are worshippers of the same God.
There are poems in _The Book of Pilgrimage_ of the stillness of a
whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry in
their exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this second
book are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they have
withdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as in
the poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of a
silent world:
"By day Thou art the Legend and the Dream
That like a whisper floats about all men,
The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
After the hour has struck, to close again.
And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends
So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise. "
The last part of _The Book of Hours_, _The Book of Poverty and Death_,
is finally a symphony of variations on the two great symbolic themes in
the work of Rilke. As Christ in the parable of the rich young man
demands the abandonment of all treasures, so in this book the poet sees
the coming of the Kingdom, the fulfilment of all our longings for a
nearness to God when we have become simple again like little children
and poor in possessions like God Himself. In this phase of Rilke's
development, the principle of renunciation constitutes a certain
negative element in his philosophy. The poet later proceeded to a
positive acquiescence toward man's possessions, at least those acquired
or created in the domain of art.
In our approach through the mystic we touch reality most deeply. It is
because of this that all art and all philosophy culminate in their final
forms in a crystallization of those values of life that remain forever
inexplicable to pure reason; they become religious in the simple,
profound sense of that word. Before the eternal facts of Life doubt and
strife are reconciled into faith, will and pride change into humility.
The realization of this truth expressed in the medium of poetry is the
significance of Rilke's _Book of Hours_. A distinguished Scandinavian
writer has pronounced _Das Stunden-Buch_ one of the supreme literary
achievements of our time and its deepest and most beautiful book of
prayer.
In his subsequent poetic work Rilke did not again reach the sustained
high quality of this book, the mood and idea of which he incorporated
into a prose work of exquisite lyrical beauty: _The Sketch of Malte
Laurids Brigge_.
* * * * *
In _New Poems_ (1907) and _New Poems, Second Part_ (1908) the historical
figure, frequently taken from the Old Testament, has grown beyond the
proportions of life; it is weightier with fate and invariably becomes
the means of expressing symbolically an abstract thought or a great
human destiny. _Abishag_ presents the contrast between the dawning and
the fading life; _David Singing Before Saul_ shows the impatience of
awakening ambition, and _Joshua_ is the man who forces even God to do
his will. The antique Hellenic world rises with shining splendour in the
poems _Eranna to Sappho_, _Lament for Antinous_, _Early Apollo_ and the
_Archaic Torso of Apollo_.
The spirit of the Middle Ages with its religious fervour and
superstitious fanaticism is symbolized in several poems, the most
important among which are _The Cathedral_, _God in the Middle Ages_,
_Saint Sebastian_ personifying martyrdom, and _The Rose Window_, whose
glowing magic is compared to the hypnotic power of the tiger's eye.
Modern Paris is often the background of the _New Poems_, and the crass
play of light and shadow upon the waxen masks of Life's disillusioned in
the Morgue is caught with the same intense realistic vision as the
flamingos and parrots spreading their vari-coloured soft plumage in the
warmth of the sun in the Avenue of the Jardin des Plantes.
Almost all of the poems in these two volumes are short and precise. The
images are portrayed with the sensitive intensity of impressionistic
technique. The majestic quietude of the long lines of _The Book of
Pictures_ is broken, the colours are more vibrant, more scintillating
and the pictures are painted in nervous, darting strokes as though to
convey the manner in which they were perceived: in one single,
all-absorbing glance. For this reason many of these _New Poems_ are not
quite free from a certain element of virtuosity. On the other hand,
Rilke achieves at times a perfect surety of rapid stroke as in the poem
_The Spanish Dancer_, who rises luminously on the horizon of our inner
vision like a circling element of fire, flaming and blinding in the
momentum of her movements. Degas and Zuloaga seem to have combined their
art on one canvas to give to this dancer the abundant elasticity of
grace and the splendid fantasy of colour.
* * * * *
Many of the themes in the _New Poems_ bear testimony to the fact that
Rilke travelled extensively, prior to the writing of these volumes, in
Italy, Germany, France, and Scandinavia. His book on the five painters
at the artists' colony at Worpswede, where he remained for a time,
entirely given over to the observation of the atmosphere, the movement
of the sky and the play of light upon the far heath of this northern
landscape, is an introduction to every interpretation of the work of
landscape painters and a tender poem to a land whose solitary and
melancholy beauty entered into his own work.
More vital than the influence of the personalities and the art treasures
of the countries which Rilke visited and more potent in its effect upon
his creations, like a great sun over the most fruitful years of his
life, stands the towering personality of Auguste Rodin. The _New Poems_
bear the dedication: "A mon grand ami, Auguste Rodin," indicating the
twofold influence which the French sculptor wielded over the poet, that
of a friend and that of an artist.
One recalls the broad, solidly-built figure of Rodin with his rugged
features and high, finely chiselled forehead, moving slowly among the
white glistening marble busts and statues as a giant in an old legend
moves among the rocks and mountains of his realm, patient, all-enduring,
the man who has mastered life, strong and tempered by the storms of
time. And one thinks of Rainer Maria Rilke, young, blond, with his
slender aristocratic figure, the slightly bent-forward figure of one who
on solitary walks meditates much and intensely, with his sensitive full
mouth and the "firm structure of the eyebrow gladly sunk in the shadow
of contemplation," the face full of dreams and with an expression of
listening to some distant music.
From no other book of his, not excepting _The Book of Hours_, can we
deduce so accurate a conception of Rilke's philosophy of Life and Art as
we can draw from his comparatively short monograph on Auguste Rodin.
Rilke sees in Rodin the dominant personification in our age of the
"power of servitude in all nature. " For this reason the book on Rodin is
far more than a purely aesthetic valuation of the sculptor's work; Rilke
traces throughout the book the strongly ethical principle which works
itself out in every creative act in the realm of art. This grasp of the
deeper significance of all art gives to the book on Rodin its well-nigh
religious aspect of thought and its hymnlike rhythm of expression. He
begins: "Rodin was solitary before fame came to him, and afterward he
became perhaps still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the
summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name. " And
he sums up this one man's greatness: "Sometime it will be realized what
has made this great artist so supreme. He was a worker whose only desire
was to penetrate with all his forces into the humble and the difficult
significance of his tool. Therein lay a certain renunciation of life but
in just this renunciation lay his triumph--for Life entered into his
work. "
Rodin became to Rilke the manifestation of the divine principle of the
creative impulse in man. Thus Rilke's monograph on Auguste Rodin will
remain the poet's testament on Life and Art.
* * * * *
Rilke has lived deeply; he has absorbed into his artistic and spiritual
consciousness many of the supreme values of our time. His art holds the
mystic depth of the Slav, the musical strength of the German, and the
visual clarity of the Latin. As artist, he has felt life to be sacred,
and as a priest, he has brought to its altar many offerings.
H. T.
NEW YORK CITY,
AUTUMN, 1918.
FIRST POEMS
EVENING
The bleak fields are asleep,
My heart alone wakes;
The evening in the harbour
Down his red sails takes.
Night, guardian of dreams,
Now wanders through the land;
The moon, a lily white,
Blossoms within her hand.
MARY VIRGIN
How came, how came from out thy night
Mary, so much light
And so much gloom:
Who was thy bridegroom?
Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot
That thou the same art not
Who came to me
In thy Virginity.
I am still so blossoming, so young.
How shall I go on tiptoe
From childhood to Annunciation
Through the dim twilight
Into thy Garden.
THE BOOK OF PICTURES
PRESAGING
I am like a flag unfurled in space,
I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,
While the things beneath are not yet stirring,
While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys
And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy--
Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea
And expand and withdraw into myself
And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
AUTUMN
The leaves fall, fall as from far,
Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent.
And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
From out the stars into the Solitude.
Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
And lo! the other one:--it is the law.
But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
SILENT HOUR
Whoever weeps somewhere out in the world
Weeps without cause in the world
Weeps over me.
Whoever laughs somewhere out in the night
Laughs without cause in the night
Laughs at me.
Whoever wanders somewhere in the world
Wanders in vain in the world
Wanders to me.
Whoever dies somewhere in the world
Dies without cause in the world
Looks at me.
THE ANGELS
They all have tired mouths
And luminous, illimitable souls;
And a longing (as if for sin)
Trembles at times through their dreams.
They all resemble one another,
In God's garden they are silent
Like many, many intervals
In His mighty melody.
But when they spread their wings
They awaken the winds
That stir as though God
With His far-reaching master hands
Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
SOLITUDE
Solitude is like a rain
That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
It floats remote across the far-off plain
Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
When men with quiet hatred burning deep
Together in a common bed must sleep--
Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan . . .
KINGS IN LEGENDS
Kings in old legends seem
Like mountains rising in the evening light.
They blind all with their gleam,
Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
Their robes are edged with bands
Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords--
With richly jeweled hands
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
THE KNIGHT
The Knight rides forth in coat of mail
Into the roar of the world.
And here is Life: the vines in the vale
And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,
And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;
God's flags afloat on every wall
In a thousand streets unfurled.
Beneath the armour of the Knight
Behind the chain's black links
Death crouches and thinks and thinks:
"When will the sword's blade sharp and bright
Forth from the scabbard spring
And cut the network of the cloak
Enmeshing me ring on ring--
When will the foe's delivering stroke
Set me free
To dance
And sing? "
THE BOY
I wish I might become like one of these
Who, in the night on horses wild astride,
With torches flaming out like loosened hair
On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.
I wish to stand as on a boat and dare
The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled
In darkness but with helmet made of gold
That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,
Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow
With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,
Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.
One stands by me and blows a blast apace
On his great flashing trumpet and the sound
Shrieks through the vast black solitude around
Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.
The houses fall behind us on their knees,
Before us bend the streets and them we gain,
The great squares yieled to us and them we seize--
And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.
INITIATION
Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,
Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,
And far in the dim distance leave thy home,
Whosoever thou art.
Lift thine eyes which lingering see
The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,
Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree
That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,
And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise
Like words that in the silence clearer grow;
As they unfold before thy will to know
Gently withdraw thine eyes--
THE NEIGHBOUR
Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?
In many foreign cities, far away,
Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.
Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?
Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed
Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,
Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?
Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?
Why am I the neighbour always
Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?
Life is more heavy--thy song says--
Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.
SONG OF THE STATUE
Who so loveth me that he
Will give his precious life for me?
I shall be set free from the stone
If some one drowns for me in the sea,
I shall have life, life of my own,--
For life I ache.
I long for the singing blood,
The stone is so still and cold.
I dream of life, life is good.
Will no one love me and be bold
And me awake?
-------------------------------
I weep and weep alone,
Weep always for my stone.
What joy is my blood to me
If it ripens like red wine?
It cannot call back from the sea
The life that was given for mine,
Given for Love's sake.
MAIDENS. I
Others must by a long dark way
Stray to the mystic bards,
Or ask some one who has heard them sing
Or touch the magic chords.
Only the maidens question not
The bridges that lead to Dream;
Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls
On a silver vase agleam.
The maidens' doors of Life lead out
Where the song of the poet soars,
And out beyond to the great world--
To the world beyond the doors.
MAIDENS. II
Maidens the poets learn from you to tell
How solitary and remote you are,
As night is lighted by one high bright star
They draw light from the distance where you dwell.
For poet you must always maiden be
Even though his eyes the woman in you wake
Wedding brocade your fragile wrists would break,
Mysterious, elusive, from him flee.
Within his garden let him wait alone
Where benches stand expectant in the shade
Within the chamber where the lyre was played
Where he received you as the eternal One.
Go! It grows dark--your voice and form no more
His senses seek; he now no longer sees
A white robe fluttering under dark beech trees
Along the pathway where it gleamed before.
He loves the long paths where no footfalls ring,
And he loves much the silent chamber where
Like a soft whisper through the quiet air
He hears your voice, far distant, vanishing.
The softly stealing echo comes again
From crowds of men whom, wearily, he shuns;
And many see you there--so his thought runs--
And tenderest memories are pierced with pain.
THE BRIDE
Call me, Beloved! Call aloud to me!
Thy bride her vigil at the window keeps;
The evening wanes to dusk, the dimness creeps
Down empty alleys of the old plane-tree.
O! Let thy voice enfold me close about,
Or from this dark house, lonely and remote,
Through deep blue gardens where gray shadows float
I will pour forth my soul with hands stretched out . . .
AUTUMNAL DAY
Lord! It is time. So great was Summer's glow:
Thy shadows lay upon the dials' faces
And o'er wide spaces let thy tempests blow.
Command to ripen the last fruits of thine,
Give to them two more burning days and press
The last sweetness into the heavy wine.
He who has now no house will ne'er build one,
Who is alone will now remain alone;
He will awake, will read, will letters write
Through the long day and in the lonely night;
And restless, solitary, he will rove
Where the leaves rustle, wind-blown, in the grove.
MOONLIGHT NIGHT
South-German night! the ripe moon hangs above
Weaving enchantment o'er the shadowy lea.
From the old tower the hours fall heavily
Into the dark as though into the sea--
A rustle, a call of night-watch in the grove,
Then for a while void silence fills the air;
And then a violin (from God knows where)
Awakes and slowly sings: Oh Love . . . Oh Love . . .
IN APRIL
Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
MEMORIES OF A CHILDHOOD
The darkness hung like richness in the room
When like a dream the mother entered there
And then a glass's tinkle stirred the air
Near where a boy sat in the silent gloom.
The room betrayed the mother--so she felt--
She kissed her boy and questioned "Are you here? "
And with a gesture that he held most dear
Down for a moment by his side she knelt.
Toward the piano they both shyly glanced
For she would sing to him on many a night,
And the child seated in the fading light
Would listen strangely as if half entranced,
His large eyes fastened with a quiet glow
Upon the hand which by her ring seemed bent
And slowly wandering o'er the white keys went
Moving as though against a drift of snow.
DEATH
Before us great Death stands
Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine
To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
And ecstasy through all our being leaps--
Death bows his head and weeps.
THE ASHANTEE
(Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris)
No vision of exotic southern countries,
No dancing women, supple, brown and tall
Whirling from out their falling draperies
To melodies that beat a fierce mad call;
No sound of songs that from the hot blood rise,
No langorous, stretching, dusky, velvet maids
Flashing like gleaming weapon their bright eyes,
No swift, wild thrill the quickening blood pervades.
Only mouths widening with a still broad smile
Of comprehension, a strange knowing leer
At white men, at their vanity and guile,
An understanding that fills one with fear.
The beasts in cages much more loyal are,
Restlessly pacing, pacing to and fro,
Dreaming of countries beckoning from afar,
Lands where they roamed in days of long ago.
They burn with an unquenched and smothered fire
Consumed by longings over which they brood,
Oblivious of time, without desire,
Alone and lost in their great solitude.
REMEMBRANCE
Expectant and waiting you muse
On the great rare thing which alone
To enhance your life you would choose:
The awakening of the stone,
The deeps where yourself you would lose.
In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
And you think of countries once crossed,
Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
Of the women that you have lost.
And it comes to you then at last--
And you rise for you are aware
Of a year in the far off past
With its wonder and fear and prayer.
MUSIC
What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole
Like wandering steps, like a whisper--then mute;
What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul
Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song,
It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies;
Your young life is strong, but how much more strong
Is the longing that through your music sighs.
Let your flute be still and your soul float through
Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea,
For here your song lived and it wisely grew
Before it was forced into melody.
Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls,
Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy!
Now it no longer steals over my walls--
But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.
MAIDEN MELANCHOLY
A young knight comes into my mind
As from some myth of old.
He came! You felt yourself entwined
As a great storm would round you wind.
He went! A blessing undefined
Seemed left, as when church-bells declined
And left you wrapt in prayer.
You fain would cry aloud--but bind
Your scarf about you and tear-blind
Weep softly in its fold.
A young knight comes into my mind
Full armored forth to fare.
His smile was luminously kind
Like glint of ivory enshrined,
Like a home longing undivined,
Like Christmas snows where dark ways wind,
Like sea-pearls about turquoise twined,
Like moonlight silver when combined
With a loved book's rare gold.
MAIDENS AT CONFIRMATION
(Paris in May, 1903)
The white veiled maids to confirmation go
Through deep green garden paths they slowly wind;
Their childhood they are leaving now behind:
The future will be different, they know.
Oh! Will it come? They wait--It must come soon!
The next long hour slowly strikes at last,
The whole house stirs again, the feast is past,
And sadly passes by the afternoon . . .
Like resurrection were the garments white
The wreathed procession walked through trees arched wide
Into the church, as cool as silk inside,
With long aisles of tall candles flaming bright:
The lights all shone like jewels rich and rare
To solemn eyes that watched them gleam and flare.
Then through the silence the great song rose high
Up to the vaulted dome like clouds it soared,
Then luminously, gently down it poured--
Over white veils like rain it seemed to die.
The wind through the white garments softly stirred
And they grew vari-coloured in each fold
And each fold hidden blossoms seemed to hold
And flowers and stars and fluting notes of bird,
And dim, quaint figures shimmering like gold
Seemed to come forth from distant myths of old.
Outside the day was one of green and blue,
With touches of a luminous glowing red,
Across the quiet pond the small waves sped.
Beyond the city, gardens hidden from view
Sent odors of sweet blossoms on the breeze
And singing sounded through the far off trees.
It was as though garlands crowned everything
And all things were touched softly by the sun;
And many windows opened one by one
And the light trembled on them glistening.
THE WOMAN WHO LOVES
Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide
And lose myself--for to you I belong.
The hope that hitherto I have denied
Imperious comes to me as from your side
Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
Those times: the times when I was quite alone
By memories wrapt that whispered to me low,
My silence was the quiet of a stone
Over which rippling murmuring waters flow.
But in these weeks of the awakening Spring
Something within me has been freed--something
That in the past dark years unconscious lay,
Which rises now within me and commands
And gives my poor warm life into your hands
Who know not what I was that Yesterday.
PONT DU CARROUSEL
Upon the bridge the blind man stands alone,
Gray like a mist veiled monument he towers
As though of nameless realms the boundary stone
About which circle distant starry hours.
He seems the center around which stars glow
While all earth's ostentations surge below.
Immovably and silently he stands
Placed where the confused current ebbs and flows;
Past fathomless dark depths that he commands
A shallow generation drifting goes. . . .
MADNESS
She thinks: I am--Have you not seen?
Who are you then, Marie?
I am a Queen, I am a Queen!
To your knee, to your knee!
And then she weeps: I was--a child--
Who were you then, Marie?
Know you that I was no man's child,
Poor and in rags--said she.
And then a Princess I became
To whom men bend their knees;
To princes things are not the same
As those a beggar sees.
And those things which have made you great
Came to you, tell me, when?
One night, one night, one night quite late,
Things became different then.
I walked the lane which presently
With strung chords seemed to bend;
Then Marie became Melody
And danced from end to end.
The people watched with startled mien
And passed with frightened glance
For all know that only a Queen
May dance in the lanes: dance! . . .
LAMENT
Oh! All things are long passed away and far.
A light is shining but the distant star
From which it still comes to me has been dead
A thousand years . . . In the dim phantom boat
That glided past some ghastly thing was said.
A clock just struck within some house remote.
Which house? --I long to still my beating heart.
Beneath the sky's vast dome I long to pray . . .
Of all the stars there must be far away
A single star which still exists apart.
And I believe that I should know the one
Which has alone endured and which alone
Like a white City that all space commands
At the ray's end in the high heaven stands.
SYMBOLS
From infinite longings finite deeds rise
As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
And trembling from their lack of power descend--
So through the falling torrent of our fears
Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
NEW POEMS
EARLY APOLLO
As when at times there breaks through branches bare
A morning vibrant with the breath of spring,
About this poet-head a splendour rare
Transforms it almost to a mortal thing.
There is as yet no shadow in his glance,
Too cool his temples for the laurel's glow;
But later o'er those marble brows, perchance,
A rose-garden with bushes tall will grow,
And single petals one by one will fall
O'er the still mouth and break its silent thrall,
--The mouth that trembles with a dawning smile
As though a song were rising there the while.
THE TOMB OF A YOUNG GIRL
We still remember! The same as of yore
All that has happened once again must be.
As grows a lemon-tree upon the shore--
It was like that--your light, small breasts you bore,
And his blood's current coursed like the wild sea.
That god--
who was the wanderer, the slim
Despoiler of fair women; he--the wise,--
But sweet and glowing as your thoughts of him
Who cast a shadow over your young limb
While bending like your arched brows o'er your eyes.
THE POET
You Hour! From me you ever take your flight,
Your swift wings wound me as they whir along;
Without you void would be my day and night,
Without you I'll not capture my great song.
I have no earthly spot where I can live,
I have no love, I have no household fane,
And all the things to which myself I give
Impoverish me with richness they attain.
THE PANTHER
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
And out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
Is like a dance of strength circling around,
While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyes
Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
Tense with the flood of visions that arise
Only to sink and die within his heart.
GROWING BLIND
Among all the others there sat a guest
Who sipped her tea as if one apart,
And she held her cup not quite like the rest;
Once she smiled so it pierced one's heart.
When the group of people arose at last
And laughed and talked in a merry tone,
As lingeringly through the rooms they passed
I saw that she followed alone.
Tense and still like one who to sing must rise
Before a throng on a festal night
She lifted her head, and her bright glad eyes
Were like pools which reflected light.
She followed on slowly after the last
As though some object must be passed by,
And yet as if were it once but passed
She would no longer walk but fly.
THE SPANISH DANCER
As a lit match first flickers in the hands
Before it flames, and darts out from all sides
Bright, twitching tongues, so, ringed by growing bands
Of spectators--she, quivering, glowing stands
Poised tensely for the dance--then forward glides
And suddenly becomes a flaming torch.
Her bright hair flames, her burning glances scorch,
And with a daring art at her command
Her whole robe blazes like a fire-brand
From which is stretched each naked arm, awake,
Gleaming and rattling like a frightened snake.
And then, as though the fire fainter grows,
She gathers up the flame--again it glows,
As with proud gesture and imperious air
She flings it to the earth; and it lies there
Furiously flickering and crackling still--
Then haughtily victorious, but with sweet
Swift smile of greeting, she puts forth her will
And stamps the flames out with her small firm feet.
OFFERING
My body glows in every vein and blooms
To fullest flower since I first knew thee,
My walk unconscious pride and power assumes;
Who art thou then--thou who awaitest me?
When from the past I draw myself the while
I lose old traits as leaves of autumn fall;
I only know the radiance of thy smile,
Like the soft gleam of stars, transforming all.
Through childhood's years I wandered unaware
Of shimmering visions my thoughts now arrests
To offer thee, as on an altar fair
That's lighted by the bright flame of thy hair
And wreathed by the blossoms of thy breasts.
LOVE SONG
When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
How shall I tune it then to other things?
O! That some spot in darkness could be found
That does not vibrate whene'er your depths sound.
But everything that touches you and me
Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
O! Sweet song--
ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
But from his torso gleaming light is shed
As from a candelabrum; inward bent
His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
There is no spot that does not bind you fast
And transport you back, back to a far past.
THE BOOK OF HOURS
_The Book of A Monk's Life_
I live my life in circles that grow wide
And endlessly unroll,
I may not reach the last, but on I glide
Strong pinioned toward my goal.
About the old tower, dark against the sky,
The beat of my wings hums,
I circle about God, sweep far and high
On through milleniums.
Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
Many have painted her. But there was one
Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
When he was suffering she came to him,
And all the heavy pain within his heart
Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
A trembling smile softly begins to dawn . . .
Though angels with seven candles light the place
You cannot read the secret of her face.
In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
And I dream of young Titians and of others
In which the God with shining radiance glows.
But though my vigil constantly I keep
My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
My branches only are swayed by the wind.
Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
Against thee all my surging senses sing?
About thy face in circles drawing near
My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.
When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
But when thou art awake I am thy Will
Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
Expanding like far space star-lit and still
Into the distant mystic realm of Time.
I love my life's dark hours
In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
Or letters old, I magically steep
Myself in days gone by: again I give
Myself unto the past:--again I live.
Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space . . .
Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
Are lost once more in sadness and in song.
_The Book of Pilgrimage_
By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
That like a whisper floats about all men,
The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
After the hour has struck, to close again.
And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.
All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
And those who find would bind Thee
To gesture and to form.
But I would comprehend Thee
As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
Thou growest with my maturity,
Thou Art in calm and storm.
I ask of Thee no vanity
To evidence and prove Thee.
Thou Wert in eons old.
Perform no miracles for me,
But justify Thy laws to me
Which, as the years pass by me.
All soundlessly unfold.
In a house was one who arose from the feast
And went forth to wander in distant lands,
Because there was somewhere far off in the East
A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.
In another house was the one who had died,
Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
And ever within the walls did abide--
For out of the house he could no more pass.
And his children set forth to seek for the spot
Where stands the great Church which he forgot.
Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
And without feet I still can follow you,
And without voice I still can to you call.
Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
Through all the singing currents of my blood.
In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
To seek you over the wide world I roam,
For all abundance is but meager measure
Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.
Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?
My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
To find you before day to night has drifted;
I reach out into space to seek you there . . .
Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
You come, and over earth a magic vesture
Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.
_The Book of Poverty and Death_
Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
But that had once from Life received all this
Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
A thing apart, a parable in stone.
Alone Thou wanderest through space,
Profound One with the hidden face;
Thou art Poverty's great rose,
The eternal metamorphose
Of gold into the light of sun.
Thou art the mystic homeless One;
Into the world Thou never came,
Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!
A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
Make me a listener at Thy stone,
Give to me vision and then wake me
Upon Thy oceans all alone.
Thy rivers' courses let me follow
Where they leap the crags in their flight
And where at dusk in caverns hollow
They croon to music of the night.
Send me far into Thy barren land
Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
August symbols of unlived lives.
There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
And behind them a blind man goes:
With him I will walk till day is done
Up the pathway that no one knows . . .
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