First Elegy, Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke

"Oh, and there's Night, there's Night, when wind full of cosmic space
feeds on our faces: for whom would she not remain, longed for, mild disenchantress,
painfully there for the lonely heart to achieve?
Is she lighter for lovers?
Alas, with each other they only conceal their lot!
Don't you know yet?-Fling the emptiness out of your arms
into the spaces we breathe-maybe that the birds
will feel the extended air in more intimate flight."

Yes, the Springs had need of you. Many a star
was waiting for you to espy it. Many a wave
would rise on the past towards you; or, else, perhaps
as you went by an open window, a violin
would be giving itself to someone. All this was a trust.
But were you equal to it? Were you not always
distracted by expectation, as though all this
were announcing someone to love?
(As if you could hope to conceal her,
with all those great strange thoughts
going in and out and often staying overnight!)"

"Strange not to go on wishing one's wishes. Strange,
to see all that was once relation so loosely fluttering
hither and thither in space. And it's hard, being dead,
and full of retrieving before one begins to espy
a trace of eternity-"

~ First Elegy recited by Alan, June 1994