Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

First read 2006

There is very little pre-modern poetry that I am able to read myself, (though I can often appreciate it being recited) and I am not sure whether it's Rilke's genius or Babette Deutsch's musical, mainly free verse translation that makes these poems so beautiful, so perfectly clear and direct, like a mountain spring rolling over your toes, like a smooth cool pebble dropped into your hand.

As an atheist I have to interrogate myself and work hard for a meaningful interpretation when I read Rilke, but his god is so interesting that sometimes I'm content to smile and leave him to it. Even the unbeliever can find some stimulating conversation to have with these poems, if not comfort and sweetness.

What will you do God, when I die?
When I, your pitcher, broken, lie?
When I, your drink, go stale or dry?
I am your garb, the trade you ply,
you lose your meaning, losing me.

Homeless without me, you will be
robbed of your welcome, warm and sweet.
I am your sandals: your tired feet
will wander bare for want of me.

Your mighty cloak will fall away.
Your glance that on my cheek was laid
and pillowed warm, will seek, dismayed,
the comfort that I offered once -
to lie, as sunset colours fade
in the cold lap of alien stones.

What will you do, God? I am afraid.

In her introductions Deutsch writes (beautifully) about Rilke's god as created by art "The wine not yet ripened", but here the poet addresses god in intimate love as, it seems to me, both parent and child.

All will grow great and powerful again:
the seas be wrinkled and the land be plain,
the trees gigantic and the walls be low;
and in the valleys, strong and multiform,
a race of herdsfolk and of farmers grow.

No churches to encircle God as though
he were a fugitive, and then bewail him
as if he were a captured wounded creature -
all houses will prove friendly, there will be
a sense of boundless sacrifice prevailing
in dealings between men, in you, in me.

No waiting the beyond, no peering toward it,
but longing to degrade not even death;
we shall learn earthliness, and serve its ends,
to feel its hands about us like a friend's.

Without agreeing with him, I have sympathy for Nietzsche's sneer at Christian morality. Love your neighbour and give away your wealth is simply not enough to live by, which is why the 'great' Catholic theologians like Aquinas had to shore it up with Aristotle and other philosophers of the greco-roman tradition. Rilke takes a different approach, placing responsibility on the individual to create a world of gentleness and respect for nature through love. Hmm. Well it works as poetry, it works as an appeal, it feels nice.

They will say "mine" as one will sometimes call
the prince his friend in speech with villagers,
the prince being very great - and far away.
They call strange walls "mine," knowing not at all
who is the master of the house indeed.
They still say "mine", and claim possession, though
each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes;
a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses
as owner of the lightning and the sun.
And so they say: my life, my wife, my child,
my dog, well knowing all that they have styled
their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain
shapes foreign and unknown,
that blindly groping they must stumble on.
This truth, be sure, only the great discern,
who long for eyes. The others will not learn
that in the beggary of their wandering
they cannot claim a bond with any thing,
but, driven from possessions they have prized,
not by their own belongings recognized,
they can OWN wives no more than they own flowers,
whose life is alien and apart from ours.

This apartness of other beings, especially animals, is picked up by DH Lawrence, for example in his poem . When I read Lawrence's poem in this anthology I thought I had read in Rilke a wonderful poem about animals' experience of the world in this little collection, but I was confused; the poem was in The Thunder Mutters. It's much richer and chewier than the sweet little poems here, so I know there's a lot more Rilke for me. That's good, because his words make the world lovelier. They weigh in the balance against despair.