You for Antiquity, rose thronged in power, were a calyx with only a single rim, but for us of to-day you’re the full, the numberless flower, the theme whose depths we can only skim.

Grown so rich, you appear like draping on draping about a body of air and fire; though each of your leaves in itself is at once an escaping and a disowning of all attire.

For centuries, name after sweetest name, we have heard your fragrance singing: suddenly it hangs in the air like fame. And then we find to name it exceeds our powers. . . "

---Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus