Rainer Maria Rilke
Love Song
How can I hold my soul, so that it will
not touch your own? How can I get it clear
of you, so it can reach to other places?
I wish that I could stow it somewhere still
and strange, in one of my remoter spaces:
some dark reach of myself, which won’t appear
to swing in concord with your swinging paces.But everything that touches me and you
draws us together, making one from two,
as one bow gives two strings a single tongue.
What instrument is this on which we’re laid?
And by what fiddler are we being played?
O pretty song.
David Hill translates from German, Hungarian, Romanian and Russian. A collection of his own poems, Angels and Astronauts, appeared in 1999 (NPF Publications). He lives in Budapest.
Translated by David Hill
Page(s) 37
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