Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot fathom his mysterious head,
    Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent:
    But from his torso gleaming light is shed
    As from a candelabrum; inward bent
    His glance there glows and lingers. Otherwise
    The round breast would not blind you with its grace,
    Nor could the soft-curved circle of the thighs
    Steal to the arc whence issues a new race.
    Nor could this stark and stunted stone display
    Vibrance beneath the shoulders heavy bar,
    Nor shine like fur upon a beast of prey,
    Nor break forth from its lines like a great star--
    There is no spot that does not bind you fast
    And transport you back, back to a far past.












    I live my life in circles that grow wide
    And endlessly unroll,
    I may not reach the last, but on I glide
    Strong pinioned toward my goal.

    About the old tower, dark against the sky,
    The beat of my wings hums,
    I circle about God, sweep far and high
    On through milleniums.

    Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,
    Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?




    Many have painted her. But there was one
    Who drew his radiant colours from the sun.
    Mysteriously glowing through a background dim
    When he was suffering she came to him,
    And all the heavy pain within his heart
    Rose in his hands and stole into his art.
    His canvas is the beautiful bright veil
    Through which her sorrow shines. There where the
    Texture o'er her sad lips is closely drawn
    A trembling smile softly begins to dawn ...
    Though angels with seven candles light the place
    You cannot read the secret of her face.




    In cassocks clad I have had many brothers
    In southern cloisters where the laurel grows,
    They paint Madonnas like fair human mothers
    And I dream of young Titians and of others
    In which the God with shining radiance glows.

    But though my vigil constantly I keep
    My God is dark--like woven texture flowing,
    A hundred drinking roots, all intertwined;
    I only know that from His warmth I'm growing.
    More I know not: my roots lie hidden deep
    My branches only are swayed by the wind.




    Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear
    Against thee all my surging senses sing?
    About thy face in circles drawing near
    My thought floats like a fluttering white wing.

    Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
    In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?
    But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
    Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.

    When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
    But when thou art awake I am thy Will
    Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
    Expanding like far space star-lit and still
    Into the distant mystic realm of Time.




    I love my life's dark hours
    In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
    While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
    Or letters old, I magically steep
    Myself in days gone by: again I give
    Myself unto the past:--again I live.

    Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
    Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...

    Then I am shaken as a sweeping storm
    Shakes a ripe tree that grows above a grave
    'Round whose cold clay the roots twine fast and warm--
    And Youth's fair visions that glowed bright and brave,
    Dreams that were closely cherished and for long,
    Are lost once more in sadness and in song.








    By day Thou are the Legend and the Dream
    That like a whisper floats about all men,
    The deep and brooding stillnesses which seem,
    After the hour has struck, to close again.

    And when the day with drowsy gesture bends
    And sinks to sleep beneath the evening skies,
    As from each roof a tower of smoke ascends--
    So does Thy Realm, my God, around me rise.




    All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
    And those who find would bind Thee
    To gesture and to form.

    But I would comprehend Thee
    As the wide Earth unfolds Thee.
    Thou growest with my maturity,
    Thou Art in calm and storm.

    I ask of Thee no vanity
    To evidence and prove Thee.
    Thou Wert in eons old.

    Perform no miracles for me,
    But justify Thy laws to me
    Which, as the years pass by me.
    All soundlessly unfold.




    In a house was one who arose from the feast
    And went forth to wander in distant lands,
    Because there was somewhere far off in the East
    A spot which he sought where a great Church stands.
    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.








    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 ...

        Rainer Maria Rilke
        (tr. Jessie Lamont)