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Home / Books / The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin

The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin

Book by Rainer Maria Rilke · 2 quotes · Thousand, World, Arrested

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The best of Rilke: 72 form-true verse translations with facing originals, commentary, and compact biography ; translated by Walter Arndt ; foreword by Cyrus Hamlin Quotes

“So it's back once more, back up the slope. Why do they always ruin my rope with their cuts? I felt so ready the other day, Had a real foretaste of eternity In my guts. Spoonfeeding me yet another sip from life's cup. I don't want it, won't take any more of it. Let me throw up. Life is medium rare and good, I see, And the world full of soup and bread, But it won't pass into the blood for me, Just goes to my head. It makes me ill, though others it feeds; Do see that I must deny it! For a thousand years from now at least I'm keeping a diet.”

“His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly. An image enters in, rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.”