There, see—a tree ascended. Pure transcendence!
Oh, Orpheus sings! Oh, tall tree in the ear!

And all was silent. Yet that silence yielded
beginnings, beckonings, and transformations.

Creatures of stillness issued from the clear,
wide-open forest filled with lairs and nests.
And it turned out that neither cunning
nor fear had caused this inner quiet,

but listening had. Bellow and shriek and roar
seemed small inside their hearts, and where just now
there'd scarcely been a hut to take this in-

a hidden refuge made of darkest longing,
the very doorposts of its entrance quaking-
you raised up temples for them in their ears.



Sonnets to Orpheus, 1:1
Rainer Maria Rilke