Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Rilke's Angels
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), one of the greatest poets of the contemporary era, was in love with angels. They inhabit his poetry, beckoning and calling at every turn. It is as if they were a secret presence, something sensed but never seen, suspected but not substanced. He longs for them eternally, yet he dreads their coming, their terrifying presence. And he asks, who among us could sustain such connection?
He causes us to reflect that we, as humans, can bear only so much of divine reality. No one can encounter the full force of the sacred essence and live.
In his verses, Rilke is above all the master of subtlety. He never overstates. Rather he hints and suggests, downplays rather than exaggerates. He is the consummate artist of a controlled passion which evokes deep feeling through restraint.
Here are two excerpts from Rilke's great series of poems called "The Duino Elegies" (Duino is the place where this brilliant sequence was written):
Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic
orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his
stronger existence. For Beauty's nothing
but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear,
and why we adore it so is because it serenely
disdains to destroy us.
(from "The First Elegy," tr. Leishman and Spender)
Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas,
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul,
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of you, veiling his radiance, stood at the front door,
slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?
. . . . . .
But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we
breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment
our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume. Though someone may tell us:
"Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room, the whole springtime
is filled with you..." -- what does it matter? he can't contain us,
we vanish inside him and around him. And those who are beautiful,
oh who can retain them? Appearance ceaselessly rises
in their face, and is gone. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish
of hot food. O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:
new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart...
alas, but that is what we are. Does the infinite space
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the angels really
reabsorb only the radiance that streamed out from themselves, or
sometimes, as if by an oversight, is there a trace
of our essence in it as well? Are we mixed in with their
features even as slightly as that vague look
in the faces of pregnant women? They do not notice it
(how could they notice) in their swirling return to themselves.
(from "The Second Duino Elegy," tr. Stephen Mitchell
(My thanks to Ivan Granger, who sent the Second Elegy as the "daily poetry selection" from www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com If you would like to receive a sacred poem each day, sign up at this site.)
He causes us to reflect that we, as humans, can bear only so much of divine reality. No one can encounter the full force of the sacred essence and live.
In his verses, Rilke is above all the master of subtlety. He never overstates. Rather he hints and suggests, downplays rather than exaggerates. He is the consummate artist of a controlled passion which evokes deep feeling through restraint.
Here are two excerpts from Rilke's great series of poems called "The Duino Elegies" (Duino is the place where this brilliant sequence was written):
Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic
orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his
stronger existence. For Beauty's nothing
but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear,
and why we adore it so is because it serenely
disdains to destroy us.
(from "The First Elegy," tr. Leishman and Spender)
Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas,
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul,
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of you, veiling his radiance, stood at the front door,
slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?
. . . . . .
But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we
breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment
our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume. Though someone may tell us:
"Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room, the whole springtime
is filled with you..." -- what does it matter? he can't contain us,
we vanish inside him and around him. And those who are beautiful,
oh who can retain them? Appearance ceaselessly rises
in their face, and is gone. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish
of hot food. O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:
new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart...
alas, but that is what we are. Does the infinite space
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the angels really
reabsorb only the radiance that streamed out from themselves, or
sometimes, as if by an oversight, is there a trace
of our essence in it as well? Are we mixed in with their
features even as slightly as that vague look
in the faces of pregnant women? They do not notice it
(how could they notice) in their swirling return to themselves.
(from "The Second Duino Elegy," tr. Stephen Mitchell
(My thanks to Ivan Granger, who sent the Second Elegy as the "daily poetry selection" from www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com If you would like to receive a sacred poem each day, sign up at this site.)
