As one turns the pages of Rilke's first small book of poems, publishedoriginally under the title Larenopfer, in the year 1895, and whichappeared in more recent editions under the less descriptive name ErsteGedichte, one realizes at once, in spite of a lack of plasticity in thepresentation, that here speaks one who has lingered long and lovinglyover the dream of his boyhood. As the title indicates, these poems are atribute, an offering to the Lares, the home spirits of his native town.Prague and the surrounding country are the ever recurring theme ofalmost every one of these poems. The meadows, the maidens, the darkriver in the evening, the spires of the cathedral at night rising likegrey mists are seen with a wonderment, the great well-spring of allpoetic imagination, with a well-nigh religious piety. Through all thesepoems there sounds like a subdued accompaniment a note of gratitude forthe ability to thus vision the world, to be sunk in the music of allthings. "Without is everything that I feel within myself, and withoutand within myself everything is immeasurable, illimitable."
The second book of poems appeared two years later and like the firstvolume Traumgekrönt is full of the music that is reminiscent of themild melancholy of the Bohemian folk-songs, in whose gentle rhythms thebarbaric strength of the race seems to be lulled to rest as the waves ofa far-away tumultuous sea gently lap the shore. The themes ofTraumgekrönt are extended somewhat beyond the immediate environmentof Prague and some of the most beautiful poems are luminous pictures ofvillages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June, out of whichrises here and there the solitary soft voice of a boy or girl singing.In these first two volumes the poet is satisfied with painting in words,full of sonorous beauty, the surrounding world. From this period datesthe small poem Evening, which seems to have been sketched by aJapanese painter, so clear and colourful is its texture, so precious andprecise are its outlines.
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God download
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Particularly in the cycle Songs of the Maidens in the bookCelebration, the atmosphere is condensed and becomes the psychicbackground of the landscape against which the gesture of longing orexpectation is seen and felt. It is the impatience to burst intoblossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these Songs of theMaidens with the tenseness of suspense. The Prayers of the Maidens toMary have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with theecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the HeavenlyVirgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love andmotherhood. This expectation, in spite of its intensity, is subdued andis only heard like the cadence of a far off dream:
It is a significant fact that Rilke dedicated this book to GerhartHauptmann, "in love and gratitude for his Michael Kramer." Hauptmann,like Rilke in these poems, has placed before us great epic figures andhis art is so concentrated that often the simple expression of thethought of one of his characters produces a shudder in the listener orreader because in this thought there vibrates the suffering of an entiresocial class and in it resounds the sorrow of many generations.
There are poems in The Book of Pilgrimage of the stillness of awhispered prayer in a great Cathedral and there are others that carry intheir exultation the music of mighty hymns. The visions in this secondbook are no less ecstatic though less glowingly colourful; they havewithdrawn inward and have brought a great peace and a great faith as inthe poem of God, whose very manifestation is the quietude and hush of asilent world:
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