Solemn Hour

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Venetian Morning 

Windows pampered like princes always see

what on occasion deigns to trouble us:

the city that, time and again, where a shimmer

of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide,

takes shape without once choosing to be.

Each new morning must first show her the opals

she wore yesterday, and pull rows

of reflections out of the canal

and remind her of the other times:

only then does she concede and settle in

like a nymph who received great Zeus.

The dangling earrings ring out at her ear;

but she lifts San Giorgio Maggiore

and smiles idly into that lovely thing.

Solemn Hour 

Whoever now weeps somewhere in the world,

weeps without reason in the world,

weeps over me.

Whoever now laughs somewhere in the night,

laughs without reason in the night,

laughs at me.

Whoever now wanders somewhere in the world,

wanders without reason out in the world,

wanders toward me.

Whoever now dies somewhere in the world,

dies without reason in the world,

looks at me. 

Piano Practice 

The summer hums. The afternoon fatigues;

she breathed her crisp white dress distractedly

and put into it that sharply etched etude

her impatience for a reality

that could come: tomorrow, this evening--,

that perhaps was there, was just kept hidden;

and at the window, tall and having everything,

she suddenly could feel the pampered park.

With that she broke off; gazed outside, locked

her hands together; wished for a long book--

and in a burst of anger shoved back

the jasmine scent. She found it sickened her.

At The Brink Of Night 

My room and this distance,

awake upon the darkening land,

are one. I am a string

stretched across deep

surging resonance.

Things are violin bodies

full of murmuring darkness,

where women's weeping dreams,

where the rancor of whole generations

stirs in its sleep . . .

I should release

my silver vibrations: then

everything below me will live,

and whatever strays into things

will seek the light

that falls without end from my dancing tone

into the old abysses

around which heaven swells

through narrow 

imploring 

rifts.