The Collected Works of Rainer Maria Rilke. Rainer Maria Rilke

down the river wan …

      KINGS IN LEGENDS

      Kings in old legends seem

      Like mountains rising in the evening light.

      They blind all with their gleam,

      Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,

      Their robes are edged with bands

      Of precious stones—the rarest earth affords—

      With richly jeweled hands

      They hold their slender, shining, naked swords.

      THE KNIGHT

      The Knight rides forth in coat of mail

      Into the roar of the world.

      And here is Life: the vines in the vale

      And friend and foe, and the feast in the hall,

      And May and the maid, and the glen and the grail;

      God's flags afloat on every wall

      In a thousand streets unfurled.

      Beneath the armour of the Knight

      Behind the chain's black links

      Death crouches and thinks and thinks:

      "When will the sword's blade sharp and bright

      Forth from the scabbard spring

      And cut the network of the cloak

      Enmeshing me ring on ring—

      When will the foe's delivering stroke

      Set me free

      To dance

      And sing?"

      THE BOY

      I wish I might become like one of these

      Who, in the night on horses wild astride,

      With torches flaming out like loosened hair

      On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.

      I wish to stand as on a boat and dare

      The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled

      In darkness but with helmet made of gold

      That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,

      Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow

      With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,

      Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.

      One stands by me and blows a blast apace

      On his great flashing trumpet and the sound

      Shrieks through the vast black solitude around

      Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.

      The houses fall behind us on their knees,

      Before us bend the streets and them we gain,

      The great squares yieled to us and them we seize—

      And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.

      INITIATION

      Whosoever thou art! Out in the evening roam,

      Out from thy room thou know'st in every part,

      And far in the dim distance leave thy home,

      Whosoever thou art.

      Lift thine eyes which lingering see

      The shadows on the foot-worn threshold fall,

      Lift thine eyes slowly to the great dark tree

      That stands against heaven, solitary, tall,

      And thou hast visioned Life, its meanings rise

      Like words that in the silence clearer grow;

      As they unfold before thy will to know

      Gently withdraw thine eyes—

      THE NEIGHBOUR

      Strange violin! Dost thou follow me?

      In many foreign cities, far away,

      Thy lone voice spoke to me like memory.

      Do hundreds play thee, or does but one play?

      Are there in all great cities tempest-tossed

      Men who would seek the rivers but for thee,

      Who, but for thee, would be forever lost?

      Why drifts thy lonely voice always to me?

      Why am I the neighbour always

      Of those who force to sing thy trembling strings?

      Life is more heavy—thy song says—

      Than the vast, heavy burden of all things.

      SONG OF THE STATUE

      Who so loveth me that he

      Will give his precious life for me?

      I shall be set free from the stone

      If some one drowns for me in the sea,