Observations placeholder
Rilke, Rainer Maria - 50 Tenth Elegy
Identifier
010048
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Henry Ryland
A description of the experience
Duino Elegies – Rainer Maria Rilke [The Tenth Elegy]
They stand at the foot of the mountains.
And there she embraces him, weeping.
He climbs alone, on the mountains of primal grief.
And not once do his footsteps sound from his silent fate.
But if the endlessly dead woke a symbol in us,
see,
they would point perhaps to the catkins,
hanging from bare hazels,
or they would intend the rain,
falling on dark soil in Spring-time. –
And we,
who think of ascending joy,
would feel the emotion,
that almost dismays us,
when a joyful thing falls.