Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Secular or Eclectic

20th Century

About Rainer Maria Rilke

Timeline (1875 - 1926)

Rainer Maria Rilke, Rainer Maria Rilke poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry, poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry

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English version by
Stephen Mitchell

Original Language
German

To Music

Themes

Heart

Silence

Recommended Books

	Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell
	The Best of Rilke: 72 Form-True Verse Translations, Translated by Walter W. Arndt
	The Book of Hours: Prayers to a Lowly God, by Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated by Annemarie Kidder
	Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated by David Young
	Engendering Inspiration: Visionary Strategies in Rilke, Lawrence, and H.D., by Helen Sword

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Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:
silence of paintings. You language where all language
ends. You time
standing vertically on the motion of motal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation
of feelings into what? --: into audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You heart-space
grown out of us. The deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forces its way out,--
holy departure:
when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
boundless,
no longer habitable.

-- from Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

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Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

About Rainer Maria Rilke

Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World