Friday, April 18, 2008

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One II

It was as though a girl came forth
from the marriage of song and lyre,
shining like springtime.
She became inseparable from my own hearing.

She slept in me. Everything was in her sleep:
the trees I had loved, the distances
that had opened, the meadows -- 
all that had ever moved me.

She slept the world. Singing god, how
have you fashioned her, that she does not long
to have once been awake? See: she took form and slept.

Where is her death? Will you discover 
the answer before your song is spent?
If i forget her, will she disappear?

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

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