Evening
The sky puts on the
darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;
and leave you, not at home
in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;
and leave you (inexpressibly
to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternatively stone in you and star.
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternatively stone in you and star.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
~
(The Selected Poetry of Rainer
Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell)
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