DUINO ELEGIES - Rainer Maria Rilke

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angels' 
Orders? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart: I'd be consumed 
in his more potent being. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure,
and while we stand in wonder it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying.

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Rainer Maria Rilke - (translated by Edward Snow)

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Wer, wenn ich schriee

And so I grip myself and choke down that call note
of dark sobbing. Ah, whom can we turn to 
in our need? Not Angels, not humans,
and the sly animals see at once
how little at home we are
in the interpreted world. That leaves us
some tree on a slope, to which our eyes returned
day after day; leaves us yesterday's street
and the coddled loyalty of an old habit
that liked it here, lingered and never left.
O and the night, the night, when the wind full of worldspace 
gnaws at our faces -, for whom won't the night be there,
desired, softly disappointing, setting hard tasks
for the single heart. Is it easier on lovers?
Ah, they only use each other to mask their fates.

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Edward Snow)

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Und so verhalt ich mich

You still don't see? Fling the emptiness in your arms
out into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the increase of air with more passionate flight.

Yes, the Springs needed you. Many a star was waiting 
for your eyes only. A wave swelled toward you
out of the past, or as you walked by the open window
a violin inside surrendered itself
to pure passion. All that was your charge.
But were you strong enough?

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Edward Snow)

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Weisst du's noch nicht?

Weren't you always distracted 
by expectation, as though each such moment
presaged a beloved's coming? (But where would you keep her,
with all those big strange thoughts in you
going and coming and sometimes staying all night?)
No, in the grip of longing sing women who loved;
their prodigious feeling still lacks an undying fame.
The abandoned ones you almost envy, since you found them
so much deeper in love than whose whom love allayed.
Begin ever anew their impossible praise.
Remember: the hero lives on, even his downfall
was only a pretext for attained existence: his ultimate birth.

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Warst du nicht immer

DUINO ELEGIES: 1 - Aber die Liebenden

DUINO ELEGIES: 3 - Mutter, du machtest ihn klein

I am a composer and writer, based in Norwich, England. Please find more about my work at my website - https://www.seeingisbeveiling.com My music is published by Universal Edition, and my books are published by the artel press. https://www.universaledition.com/en/Contacts/Michael-John-Gerard-Higgins/ https://www.theartelpress.co.uk/shop/artists-book/by-unseen-hands/

DUINO ELEGIES: 3 - Mutter, du machtest ihn klein

Michael John Gerard Higgins