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Poetry
Chaikhana
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About Rainer Maria RilkeTimeline (1875 - 1926) |
![Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry](images/RilkeRain_sm.jpg) |
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English version by Original Language |
Anticipating the Passion (from The Life of the Virgin Mary)
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If you had really wanted to be strong,
you would not have come from a woman's womb. For messiahs are quarried from mountains where the sturdy and strong comes from stone. Are you not sorry to have despoiled your land by such limitations? I am weak, don't you see; I only had streams of milk or tears to offer, and you were ever so much more than me. So much ado when your birth to me was announced. You could have been born fierce and wild from the start. If you only needed tigers to tear you to pieces, why did I learn gentleness as an art by which I wove for you a soft, pure gown without even the slightest seam for comfort--: that's how my life has been, which you now have turned upside down.
1912
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Ivan
M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright ©
2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or
publishers.
