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Rainer Maria Rilke snippet

The Book of a Monk’s Life

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Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul
In silence wrapt my Springtime’s prayer to pray?
But when thy glance rests on me then my whole
Being quickens and blooms like trees in May.

When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,
But when thou art awake I am thy Will
Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime,
Expanding like far space star-lit and still
Into the distant mystic realm of Time.

I love my life’s dark hours
In which my senses quicken and grow deep,
While, as from faint incense of faded flowers
Or letters old, I magically steep
Myself in days gone by: again I give
Myself unto the past:—again I live.

Out of my dark hours wisdom dawns apace,
Infinite Life unrolls its boundless space ...

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Quietude aware

Listening to the Holy Spirit,
One who never speaks,
Within prayer,
A hush, a tone, atonement,

A snippet from Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’

Creatures of silence emerged from the clear
unfettered forest, from dens, from lairs.
Not from shyness, this silence of theirs;
nor from any hint of fear,

simply from listening. Brutal shriek and roar
dwindled in their hearts. Where stood a mere
hut to house the passions of the ear,

constructed of longing darkly drear,
haphazardly wrought from front to rear,
you built them a temple at listening’s core.

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