Sonnets to Orpheus I.11

Sonnets to Orpheus Part 1.11

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Gaze into the sky. Is no constellation called “Horseman”?

For this is curiously impressed into our flesh:

this pride of the Earth. And another,

who compels and restrains it, and is born by it.

Isn’t it so, hunted and then subdued,

this sinewy nature of being?

Track and turnabout. Yet an imprint does transfer.

New expanses. And the two become one.

But are they it? Or does neither know

the way, which they are forging together?

Even now, wordlessly, the willow separates from the table.

The starry intersection is deceiving also.

But let’s enjoy it a little while longer,

to believe in the figure. That is enough.

[trans A. Badagnani]