No More Learning

And ever his children, when breaking their bread,
Thought of him and rose up and blessed him as dead.

In another house was the one who had died,
Who still sat at table and drank from the glass
And ever within the walls did abide--
For out of the house he could no more pass.
And his children set forth to seek for the spot
Where stands the great Church which he forgot.




Extinguish my eyes, I still can see you,
Close my ears, I can hear your footsteps fall,
And without feet I still can follow you,
And without voice I still can to you call.
Break off my arms, and I can embrace you,
Enfold you with my heart as with a hand.
Hold my heart, my brain will take fire of you
As flax ignites from a lit fire-brand--
And flame will sweep in a swift rushing flood
Through all the singing currents of my blood.




In the deep nights I dig for you, O Treasure!
To seek you over the wide world I roam,
For all abundance is but meager measure
Of your bright beauty which is yet to come.

Over the road to you the leaves are blowing,
Few follow it, the way is long and steep.
You dwell in solitude--Oh, does your glowing
Heart in some far off valley lie asleep?

My bloody hands, with digging bruised, I've lifted,
Spread like a tree I stretch them in the air
To find you before day to night has drifted;
I reach out into space to seek you there . . .

Then, as though with a swift impatient gesture,
Flashing from distant stars on sweeping wing,
You come, and over earth a magic vesture
Steals gently as the rain falls in the spring.




_The Book of Poverty and Death_




Her mouth is like the mouth of a fine bust
That cannot utter sound, nor breathe, nor kiss,
But that had once from Life received all this
Which shaped its subtle curves, and ever must
From fullness of past knowledge dwell alone,
A thing apart, a parable in stone.
Alone Thou wanderest through space,
Profound One with the hidden face;
Thou art Poverty's great rose,
The eternal metamorphose
Of gold into the light of sun.

Thou art the mystic homeless One;
Into the world Thou never came,
Too mighty Thou, too great to name;
Voice of the storm, Song that the wild wind sings,
Thou Harp that shatters those who play Thy strings!




A watcher of Thy spaces make me,
Make me a listener at Thy stone,
Give to me vision and then wake me
Upon Thy oceans all alone.
Thy rivers' courses let me follow
Where they leap the crags in their flight
And where at dusk in caverns hollow
They croon to music of the night.
Send me far into Thy barren land
Where the snow clouds the wild wind drives,
Where monasteries like gray shrouds stand--
August symbols of unlived lives.
There pilgrims climb slowly one by one,
And behind them a blind man goes:
With him I will walk till day is done
Up the pathway that no one knows . . .






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Rainer Maria Rilke

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***

***** This file should be named 38594-0. txt or 38594-0. zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www. gutenberg. org/3/8/5/9/38594/

Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www. freeliterature. org (Images generously made
available by the Internet Archive)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!