2:29

Silent friend of far-off places, feel
how your breathing still increases space.
From among the gloomy belfries' beams
let yourself ring out. What feeds on you,

it grows stronger from this sustenance.
Freely enter, freely leave this transformation.
What experience brought you greatest sorow?
Drinking wine? Then wine you must become.

Be this night devoted to excesses,
magic at the crossroads of your senses;
be the meaning of their strange encounter.

And when earthly things forget you,
to the still earth say, "I'm flowing."
To the rushing water say, "I am."


Rainer Maria Rilke
Sonnets to Orpheus

trans. Christianne Marks