Weh, riß eine der Schnüre

Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust

Sag weißt du Liebesnächte? Treiben nicht

Scharfer Burgbruch, alter Unterkiefer

Schaukel des Herzens. O sichere, an welchem unsichtbaren

Schläfer, schwarz ist das Naß noch an meinen Füßen, ungenau

Schon ist mein Blick am Hügel, dem besonnten

SCHWERKRAFT

Siehe das leichte Insekt, wie es spielt, nie entriet es

Siehe: (denn kein Baum soll dich zerstreuen)

Siehe die kleine Meise

Sieh, wie unsre Schalen sich durchdringen

So angestrengt wider die starke Nacht

Solang du Selbstgeworfnes fängst, ist alles

SPANISCHE TRILOGIE, DIE

SPAZIERGANG

Spiele die Tode, die einzelnen, rasch und du wirst sie erkennen

TOD, DER

TOD MOSES, DER

Tränen, die innigsten, steigen

TRÄNENKRÜGLEIN

Tränen, Tränen, die aus mir brechen

Überfließende Himmel verschwendeter Sterne

Unaufhaltsam, ich will die Bahn vollenden

Unendlich staun ich euch an, ihr Seligen, euer Benehmen

Unstete Waage des Lebens

Unwissend vor dem Himmel meines Lebens

VASEN-BILD

VERGÄNGLICHKEIT

Vergiß, vergiß und laß uns jetzt nur dies

Verweilung, auch am Vertrautesten nicht

VOLLMACHT

Von nahendem Regen fast zärtlich verdunkelter Garten

VORFRÜHLING

… Wann wird, wann wird, wann wird es genügen

Weg in den Garten, tief wie ein langes Getränke

Weißt du nicht, wird der Rotdorn bald

Weißt du noch: fallende Sterne, die

Welt war in dem Antlitz der Geliebten

Wem willst du klagen, Herz? Immer gemiedener

WENDUNG

… Wenn aus des Kaufmanns Hand

Wie das Gestirn, der Mond, erhaben, voll Anlaß

Wie junge Wiesen, blumig, einen Abhang

Wie steht er da vor den Verdunkelungen

WILDER ROSENBUSCH

Wir haben einen alten Verkehr

Wir, in den ringenden Nächten

Wir sind nur Mund. Wer singt das ferne Herz

Wir wissen nicht, was wir verbringen: siehe

WORTE DES HERRN AN JOHANNES AUF PATMOS, DIE

Index of Titles and First Lines in English

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

A furrow in my brain

Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape

Ah, adrift in the air

Ah, as we prayed for human help: angels soundlessly

Ah, could we escape counters and strikers of hours

Ah misery, my mother tears me down

Ah, not to be cut off

Ah, women, that you are here on earth, that you

Almost as on the last day the dead will tear themselves

Already my gaze is on the hill, that sunlit one

Always I marvel at you, you blessed ones,—at your demeanor

And here we have Death, a bluish distillate

And so we stand with mirrors

And this: this escapes from me and dissolves

ANTISTROPHES

ARRIVAL

As long as you catch self-thrown things

As once the winged energy of delight

Assault me, music, with rhythmic fury

As young meadows, flowerfilled, through

AUTUMN

Behind the innocent trees

Behold: (for no tree shall distract you)

Brother body is poor…: then we’ll have to be rich for him

But if you’d try this: to be hand in my hand

By the sun-accustomed street, in the

Center, how you from all things living

CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL

Come when you should. All this will have been

Come, you last thing, which I acknowledge

DEATH

DEATH OF MOSES, THE

Do you still remember: falling stars, how

Driftsand of hours. Quietly continuous fading

Earlier, how often, we’d remain, star in star

EARLY SPRING

ELEGY

Finally suffered-out, his being exited the terrible

First a childhood, boundless and without

Forget, forget, and let us live now

FOR HANS CAROSSA

FOR MAX PICARD

From this cloud—look: that so wildly covers

FULL POWER

Garden, by approaching rains almost tenderly darkened

God or goddess of the sleep of cats

God won’t be lived like some light morning

GONG [I]

GONG [II]

GRAVITY

Gray love-snakes I have startled

GREAT NIGHT, THE

HAND, THE

Hand’s secret self. Sole, that has ceased to walk

Harshness disappeared. Suddenly caring spreads itself

HEAD OF AMENOPHIS IV IN BERLIN

Heart’s swing. O so securely fastened

He calls it up. It startles into outline

He had long won it through gazing

How it stands out against the darkenings

IDOL

I held myself too open, I forgot

I, knower: possessing the secrets

IMAGINARY CAREER

Imagining you my being burns more brightly

Inside a rose your bed stands, beloved. You yourself

JUDITH’S RETURN

King’s heart. Core of a high

LACHRYMATORY

LAMENT

Lingering, even among what’s most intimate

Long you must suffer, knowing not what

Looking up from my book, from the close countable lines

Losing also is ours; and even forgetting

MAGICIAN, THE

MAUSOLEUM

MOONLIT NIGHT

More unconcealed the land. On every road returnings

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps

My shy moonshadow would like to speak

NARCISSUS [I]

NARCISSUS [II]

Narcissus vanished. His beauty gave off

Night. Oh you face against my face

No longer for ears…: sound

None of them, only the dark, fallen angel

Now it is time that gods stepped out

Now the stag becomes part of earth. Lifts and holds

Now we wake up with our memory

O bright gleam of a shy mirror image

ODETTE R.…

Often I stared at you, stood at the window begun yesterday

Oh gazing’s tall tree, shedding leaf on leaf

Once I took your face into

Once long ago somewhere you freed him

“ONE MUST DIE BECAUSE ONE HAS KNOWN THEM”

“One must die because one has known them.” Die

On the mountains of the heart cast out to die. Look, how small there

O the curves of my longing through the cosmos

O the losses into the All, Marina, the falling stars

Others carry the wine, others carry the oil

Overflowing heavens of squandered stars

PALM OF THE HAND

Path in the garden, deep as a long drink

Pearls roll away. Ah, one of the strings broke

Play the deaths swiftly through, the single ones, and you will see

RAISING OF LAZARUS, THE

Rose, O pure contradiction, delight

See how our cups penetrate each other

See the carefree insect, how it plays, its whole world

See the little titmouse

Sharp castle-break, ancient underjaw

Sleepers, the damp on my feet is still black, indistinct

Somewhere the flower of farewell blooms and scatters

Sound, no longer measurable

SPANISH TRILOGY, THE

SPIRIT ARIEL, THE

Straining so hard against the strength of night

Tears, tears that break out of me

Tears, those most intensely felt, rise

That we lose nothing, that even those

The birdcalls begin their praise

The body’s crossroads: and yet the heavenly streets

The Doll. Temptation

The hawthorn there: who would guess

The transformed speaks only to relinquishers. All

The way that bright planet, the moon, exalted, full of purpose

To have come through it: to have joyfully

TO HÖLDERLIN

TO LOU ANDREAS-SALOMÉ

TO MUSIC

To whom, heart, would you lament? Ever more avoided

TRANSIENCE

TURNING

Undeterrable, I’ll complete this course

Unknowing before the heavens of my life

Unsteady scales of life

VASE PAINTING

WALK, A

We don’t know what we spend

We have an old obscure connection

We, in the grappling nights

We’re only mouth. Who sings the distant heart

What birds plunge through is not that intimate space

… When from the merchant’s hand

… When will, when will, when will it be enough

WILD ROSEBUSH

WILL-O’-THE-WISPS

WORDS OF THE LORD TO JOHN ON PATMOS, THE

World was in the face of the beloved

Yes, it was necessary for this common sort

You don’t know nights of love? Don’t

You the beloved

Also by Edward Snow

PROSE

A Study of Vermeer

 

TRANSLATIONS

Rainer Maria Rilke: New Poems [1907]

Rainer Maria Rilke: New Poems [1908]: The Other Part

Rainer Maria Rilke: The Book of Images

IN PRAISE OF UNCOLLECTED POEMS

“Snow’s decision to gather into a single book the strongest of the poems Rilke composed between 1909 and 1926 but never included in any of his books is itself an important critical act … and enables us to see the range and uninterrupted fluency of Rilke’s productivity … I suspect it is because he has already translated The Book of Images, as well as the two volumes of Rilke’s 1907 and 1908 New Poems, that Snow is particularly adept at capturing what one might call the non-Orphic side of Rilke’s voice. Even in the most complex or rhetorically charged pieces, however, Snow is careful never to simplify Rilke or to elide the moments of deeply unsettling strangeness in his writing. Most important of all, these translations … should finally let us get beyond the simplifications of the Rilke legend with its cycles of transcendent inspiration and imaginative paralysis. By now, such a demystification is an essential first step toward a more genuinely responsive—and responsible—reading of the poetry itself.”

—MICHAEL ANDRÉ BERNSTEIN, The New Republic

“These poems have never been done so beautifully in English: for readers without German, they will be great discoveries; for those who have known some of them previously, they will deepen their resonance. This is a splendid achievement.”

—JOHN HOLLANDER

“It is wonderful to have a whole new (and sizable) volume of Rilke poems given us by Edward Snow, who is far and away Rilke’s best contemporary translator—one who never imposes his own personality or idiosyncrasies of style between us and the original, but gives to it that respect which proves him worthy of the task.”

—DENISE LEVERTOV

“For too long now a sentimental, soft-focus Rilke—Auden’s ‘Santa Claus of loneliness’—has prevailed in America. Edward Snow’s Rilke, especially in these austere and unsettling poems, is a different poet altogether. Snow’s intelligence and tact are palpable along the pulse of every line.”

—CHRISTOPHER BENFEY

 

North Point Press

A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Translation copyright © 1996 by Edward Snow

All rights reserved

Published in 1996 by North Point Press

First paperback edition, 1997

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-86547-513-7

Paperback ISBN-10: 0-86547-513-x

www.fsgbooks.com

eISBN 9781466872684

First eBook edition: April 2014

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