Original by Ranier Maria Rilke - Translated by Lore Confino
THE SECOND ELEGY
Every Angel holds terror. And yet, alas,
I invoke you, near deadly birds of the soul,
knowing what you are. Where have they gone, the days
of Tobias, when one of the most radiant in your midst
stood at the humble door, a traveller, and terrible no more
a youth to the youth, who curiously looked outside.
But, should the Archangel, the dangerous One behind the stars,
should he take now but one step downwards, and come closer,
our pounding heart would strike us down. Who are you?
Early successes, indulged favourites of Creation,
lofty mountain peaks, pink-dawn ridges of all Arising,
pollen of the blossoming godhead;
links of light, paths, steps, thrones,
spheres of being, shields of delight, riots
of impassioned, stormy rapture: and suddenly, singly,
mirrors: that scoop back their own outpouring
beauty into their own countenance.
For we, when we feel, turn into vapour;
we send our breath away and beyond. From ember to ember,
we give out less fragrance. Yet, someone may tell us:
you are in my blood; this roan, all of springtime
is filled with you. In vain, he cannot hold us.
We disappear in him, around him. And those who are beautiful?
Oh, who might keep than back? An appearance repeatedly
comes and goes in their faces. We lose what is ours,
as early dew rises, as heat escapes from a steaming dish.
Oh, what of our smile, what of our regard –
warm surges of the heart, ever new, ever escaping...
...Alas, that is us.
Do we leave nothing of us, not even a trace
of our being in the cosmos, into which we merge?
And the Angels, do they really gather up only
their own escaping radiance, or is there, sometimes,
as if by chance, a tiny part of our essence caught up,
no more, perhaps, than the absent-minded look
carried in the face of pregnant women?
They do not notice in the dizzy spin of return
into self. (Indeed, why should they notice?)
Lovers, if only they knew how, might speak wondrously
in the night air. It is as though all things
concealed us. See, our trees stand; the houses
we inhabit still exist. We, alone, pass by as if exchanging
air with air. And all things conspire to keep us secret,
half ashamed of us, perhaps; yet, we remain and stay
their unsayable hope.
Lovers: you who suffice for each other, might answer
questions about us. You clasp one another...
What is your proof?
See, sometimes my hands reach out, enfold each other,
or my careworn face rests in them for comfort. This touches
my feelings. But who would dare make claim
to b e for this alone....?
Yet you, who expand and grow in each other's rapture, until over
and begging: not more!
You, who in the hands of each other achieve greater abundance
than grapes in richest vintage; you, who may lose
yourselves in the powerful hold of your lover:
it is you that I ask about us. I know you touch
one another so blissfully - your caresses preserve!
And the spot you cover so tenderly does not vanish.
Beneath it, you feel the heartbeat of true permanence,
so that in each other's arms, you almost promise: Forever.
and yet, when you have over the shock
of those first glances, the yearning at the window,
and the first walk together, once in the garden...
Lovers, are you still the same? When you raise
lips to lips and join: drink to drink...
Oh, how the one who thus drinks, strangely escapes the act.
Did not caution in gesture amaze you upon Attic Stelae?
Love and Parting, were they not laid so lightly
on the shoulders, as to seem quite unlike ours.
Regard the hands, how they rest light and gentle,
for all the great strength of their torsos.
Those self-controlled beings knew: this far we may go;
this much is ours: to touch one another like this.
The Gods bear upon us harder - but that rests with the Gods.
Might not we, too, find a strip of fertile land,
our very own, between river and rock, pure, contained,
and simply human. For, as did theirs, our own heart
still exceeds us. No longer can we find it in pictures
which calm it, nor in godlike sculpture, which restrains it
yet more.