SONNETS TO ORPHEUS: SECOND PART
XXIX-RAINER MARIA RILKE
 
SILENT friend of those far from us, feeling
how your breath is still enlarging space,
fill the sombre belfry with your pealing.
What consumes you now is growing apace
 
stronger than the feeding strength it borrows.
Be, as Change will have you, shade or shine.
Which has grieved you most of all your sorrows?
Turn, if drinking’s bitter, into wine.
 
Be, in this unmeasurable night,
at your senses’ cross-ways magic cunning,
be the sense of their mysterious tryst.
 
And, should earthliness forget you quite,
murmur to the quiet earth: I’m running.
Tell the running water: I exist.