from Sonnets to Orpheus
Ranier Marie Rilke

II, 13
Translated by M. D. Herter Norton

Be in advance of all parting, as though it were
behind you like the winter that is just going.
For among winters one is so endlessly winter
that, overwintering, your heart once for all will hold out.

Be ever dead in Eurydice—, mount more singingly,
mount more praisingly back into the pure relation.
Here, among the waning, be, in the realm of decline,
be a ringing glass that shivers even as it rings.

Be—and at the same time know the condition
of not-being, the infinite ground of your deep vibration,
that you may fully fulfill it this single time.

To the used as well as the muffled and mute
store of full Nature, the uncountable sums,
jubilant add yourself and cancel the count.

II, 29
Translated by David Young

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath is enlarging space.
Among the rafters of dark belfries
let yourself ring. What preys on you will

strengthen from such nourishment.
Come and go with metamorphosis.
What's your most painful experience?
If the drinking is bitter, turn to wine.

In this huge night, become
the magic at the crossways of your senses.
Be what their strange encounter means.

And if the earthly forgets you,
say to the quiet earth: I flow.
Speak to the rushing water - say: I am.