THE SONNETS TO ORPHEUS by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Temple
BOOK IINTRODUCTIONTHE SONNETSRAINER MARIA RILKEROBERT TEMPLE'S WEBSITE
How broad the space between the stars! But how much greater the distance
Between the things around us, from which we learn!
Someone, for instance a child, … and another one next to him-,
How unspeakably remote from one another!

Fate measures us perhaps with the breadth of being,
Which is strange to us;
Just think how much distance there is between a girl and a man
When she is avoiding him or thinking of him.

Everything is distant -, and the circle never closes anywhere.
Look at the odd face of the fish staring out of its dish
On the cheerfully laid table.

Fish don’t speak. … Or at least so we believe. Who knows?
But is there perhaps somewhere at the farthest limits where we
Might speak what the fish would have said, but without them?



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