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