“Out of this cloud, see: the one that so wildly obscures
the star that was a moment past – (and me),
out of those mountainous lands there, which now have night,
night winds for a time – (and me),
out of this river on the valley floor, which catches
the gleam of a torn sky-clearing – (and me)
out of me and all of that, to make
a single thing, Lord: out of me and the feeling
with which the flock, returned to the pen,
in acquiescence breathe out the immense black
no-longer-being of the world – me and every light
in the darkness of so many houses, Lord:
to make one thing; out of strangers, for
there is not one I know, Lord, and me and me
to make one thing; out of the sleepers,
the old men in the hospice, those strangers
who cough gravely in their beds, and out of
sleep-drunk infants at a foreign breast,
out of so much ill-defined and always me,
of nothing but me and all I do not know,42
to make the thing, Lord Lord Lord, the thing
which, world-earthly like a meteor,
gathers in its heaviness only…”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Ronda, January 1913
Book: Poems to Night