The Poetry Of Rainer Maria Rilke: "Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers."

By Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Milke was born Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Milke on 4th December 1875 in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic but what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents had an unhappy marriage with his mother dressing him up as a girl in his early years, in remembrance of the baby girl she had lost and his father sending him to a military academy. He left the academy due to illness and after tutoring was accepted by University first in Prague and then in Munich where he studied art history, philosophy and literature. Whilst in Munich he was to meet his first meaningful love who remained his friend to his death, namely Lou Andreas-Salome, a sophisticated well travelled married woman who trained as a psychoanalyst under Freud. Later during a stay at an artist's colony he met and married sculptor Clara Westhoff and together they had a daughter Ruth. He lived in Paris from 1902-1910 where he mixed with many great creative minds of the time, was introduced to modernism and became a secretary to Rodin who he also wrote and lectured about. Then he lived as a guest in the Castle Duino but his writing was not to fully flourish during the following turbulent war years until he settled in Switzerland in 1919. Here he wrote profusely in both German and French many widely quoted great mystical poems that have left a lasting legacy throughout the world, drawing from existential themes and his extensive travels. He died in on December 29th 1926 after a long illness, which was eventually diagnosed as leukaemia and chose and wrote his own epitaph: Rose, oh pure contradiction, delight of being no one's sleep under so many lids.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783949199

Book preview

Collected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Jessie Lamont

Rainer Maria Milke was born Rene Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Milke on 4th December 1875 in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic but what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  His parents had an unhappy marriage with his mother dressing him up as a girl in his early years, in remembrance of the baby girl she had lost and his father sending him to a military academy.  He left the academy due to illness and after tutoring was accepted by University first in Prague and then in Munich where he studied art history, philosophy and literature.

Whilst in Munich he was to meet his first meaningful love who remained his friend to his death, namely Lou Andreas-Salome, a sophisticated well travelled married woman who trained as a psychoanalyst under Freud.  Later during a stay at an artist's colony he met and married sculptor Clara Westhoff and together they had a daughter Ruth. 

He lived in Paris from 1902-1910 where he mixed with many great creative minds of the time, was introduced to modernism and became a secretary to Rodin who he also wrote and lectured about.  Then he lived as a guest in the Castle Duino but his writing was not to fully flourish during the following turbulent war years until he settled in Switzerland in 1919.  Here he wrote profusely in both German and French many widely quoted great mystical poems that have left a lasting legacy throughout the world, drawing from existential themes and his extensive travels.  He died in on December 29th 1926 after a long illness, which was eventually diagnosed as leukaemia and chose and wrote his own epitaph: Rose, oh pure contradiction, delight of being no one's sleep under so many lids.

Index Of Contents

First Poems:

Evening

Mary Virgin

The Book of Pictures:

Presaging

Autumn

Silent Hour

The Angels

Solitude

Kings in Legends

The Knight

The Boy

Initiation

The Neighbour

Song of the Statue

Maidens I

Maidens II

The Bride

Autumnal Day

Moonlight Night

In April

Memories of a Childhood

Death

The Ashantee

Remembrance

Music

Maiden Melancholy

Maidens at Confirmation

The Woman who Loves

Pont du Carrousel

Madness

Lament

Symbols

New Poems:

Early Apollo

The Tomb of a Young Girl

The Poet

The Panther

Growing Blind

The Spanish Dancer

Offering

Love Song

Archaic Torso of Apollo

The Book of Hours:

The Book of a Monk's Life

I Live my Life in Circles

Many have Painted Her

In Cassocks Clad

Thou Anxious One

I Love My Life's Dark Hours

The Book of Pilgrimage

By Day Thou Art The Legend and The Dream

All Those Who Seek Thee

In a House Was One

Extinguish My Eyes

In the Deep Nights

The Book of Poverty and Death

Her Mouth

Alone Thou Wanderest

A Watcher of Thy Spaces

Collected Poems:

Remembrance

Put Out My Eyes

Blank Joy

Sense Of Something Coming

Before Summer Rain

Narcissus

Death

My Life

Buddha In Glory

The Lovers

The Grown-Up

Exposed On The Cliffs Of The Heart

The Future

As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight

The Panther

Sunset

Portrait Of My Father As A Young Man

Evening Love Song

The Last Evening

To Say Before Going To Sleep

Childhood

Eve

Again And Again

Woman In Love

Extinguish Thou My Eyes

What Fields Are As Fragrant As Your Hands?

You, Darkness

I Am Much Too Alone In This World, Yet Not Alone

The Spanish Dancer

You Who Never Arrived

Fire’s Reflection

The Voices

Heartbeat

The Wait

Venetian Morning

You, You Only, Exist

Piano Practice

Falling Stars

Lady At A Mirror

Greek Love-Talk

Sacrifice

Fear Of The Inexplicable

In The Beginning

God Speaks To Each Of Us

Loneliness

Going Blind

Palm

Early Spring

Ignorant Before The Heavens Of My Life

The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke by H.T.

FIRST POEMS

EVENING

The bleak fields are asleep,

My heart alone wakes;

The evening in the harbour

Down his red sails takes.

Night, guardian of dreams,

Now wanders through the land;

The moon, a lily white,

Blossoms within her hand.

MARY VIRGIN

How came, how came from out thy night

Mary, so much light

And so much gloom:

Who was thy bridegroom?

Thou callest, thou callest and thou hast forgot

That thou the same art not

Who came to me

In thy Virginity.

I am still so blossoming, so young.

How shall I go on tiptoe

From childhood to Annunciation

Through the dim twilight

Into thy Garden.

THE BOOK OF PICTURES

PRESAGING

I am like a flag unfurled in space,

I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them,

While the things beneath are not yet stirring,

While doors close gently and there is silence in the