Free Ahead of All Parting by Rainer Maria Rilke Page A

trying
    to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
    moment. All the immense
    images in me—the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
    cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
    suspected turns in the path,
    and those powerful lands that were once
    pulsing with the life of the gods—
    all rise within me to mean
    you, who forever elude me.
    You, Beloved, who are all
    the gardens I have ever gazed at,
    longing. An open window
    in a country house—, and you almost
    stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,—
    you had just walked down them and vanished.
    And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
    were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
    my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same
    bird echoed through both of us
    yesterday, separate, in the evening …
WENDUNG
    Der Weg von der Innigkeit zur Gröβe
    geht durch das Opfer. —Kassner
    Lange errang ers im Anschaun.
    Sterne brachen ins Knie
    unter dem ringenden Aufblick.
    Oder er anschaute knieend,
    und seines Instands Duft
    machte ein Göttliches müd,
    daß es ihm lächelte schlafend.
    Türme schaute er so,
    daß sie erschraken:
    wieder sie bauend, hinan, plötzlich, in Einem!
    Aber wie oft, die vom Tag
    überladene Landschaft
    ruhete hin in sein stilles Gewahren, abends.
    Tiere traten getrost
    in den offenen Blick, weidende,
    und die gefangenen Löwen
    starrten hinein wie in unbegreifliche Freiheit;
    Vögel durchflogen ihn grad,
    den gemütigen; Blumen
    wiederschauten in ihn
    groß wie in Kinder.
    Und das Gerücht, daß ein Schauender sei,
    rührte die minder,
    fraglicher Sichtbaren,
    rührte die Frauen.
    Schauend wie lang?
    Seit wie lange schon innig entbehrend,
    flehend im Grunde des Blicks?
    *
TURNING-POINT
    The road from intensity to greatness
    passes through sacrifice. —Kassner
    For a long time he attained it in looking.
    Stars would fall to their knees
    beneath his compelling vision.
    Or as he looked on, kneeling,
    his urgency’s fragrance
    tired out a god until
    it smiled at him in its sleep.
    Towers he would gaze at so
    that they were terrified:
    building them up again, suddenly, in an instant!
    But how often the landscape,
    overburdened by day,
    came to rest in his silent awareness, at nightfall.
    Animals trusted him, stepped
    into his open look, grazing,
    and the imprisoned lions
    stared in as if into an incomprehensible freedom;
    birds, as it felt them, flew headlong
    through it; and flowers, as enormous
    as they are to children, gazed back
    into it, on and on.
    And the rumor that there was someone
    who knew how to look,
    stirred those less
    visible creatures:
    stirred the women.
    Looking how long?
    For how long now, deeply deprived,
    beseeching in the depths of his glance?
    *
    Wenn er, ein Wartender, saß in der Fremde; des Gasthofs
    zerstreutes, abgewendetes Zimmer
    mürrisch um sich, und im vermiedenen Spiegel
    wieder das Zimmer
    und später vom quälenden Bett aus
    wieder:
    da beriets in der Luft,
    unfaßbar beriet es
    über sein fühlbares Herz,
    über sein durch den schmerzhaft verschütteten Körper
    dennoch fühlbares Herz
    beriet es und richtete:
    daß es der Liebe nicht habe.
    (Und verwehrte ihm weitere Weihen.)
    Denn des Anschauns, siehe, ist eine Grenze.
    Und die geschautere Welt
    will in der Liebe gedeihn.
    Werk des Gesichts ist getan,
    tue nun Herz-Werk
    an den Bildern in dir, jenen gefangenen; denn du
    überwältigtest sie: aber nun kennst du sie nicht.
    Siehe, innerer Mann, dein inneres Mädchen,
    dieses errungene aus
    tausend Naturen, dieses
    erst nur errungene, nie
    noch geliebte Geschöpf.
    When he, whose vocation was Waiting, sat far from home—
    the hotel’s distracted unnoticing bedroom
    moody around him, and in the avoided mirror
    once more the room, and later
    from the tormenting bed
    once more:
    then in the air the voices
    discussed, beyond comprehension,
    his heart, which could still be felt;
    debated what through the painfully buried body
    could somehow be felt—his heart;
    debated and passed their