The Austrian-Czech poet
Rainer Maria Rilke is quite fascinating, because he was basically in love with
all the arts—sculpture, painting, music, writing; they all shaped his
sensibilities. He was born in Prague in 1875, which was then the capital of
Bohemia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Having washed out of
military academy and been expelled from a trade school, he eventually studied
the liberal arts in Prague and Munich. He traveled and lived all over Europe,
soaking up what each community had to offer and adding the flavors to his
writing. During his long residence in Paris, he hung with Cézanne and acted as
secretary to Auguste Rodin, so he would have known the house that’s now Musée Rodin,
which I visited last November.
Perhaps he walked along
this allée in the garden:
And enjoyed some of
these works that I viewed, like the Three Shades:
Or Aphrodite:
Maybe some of these:
Well, anyhow, Rilke had relationships
with a number of women of all ages, and managed to stay on good terms with most
of them after the passion faded. He famously, in Letters to a Young Poet, admonished a young man trying to decide
between a military or a literary career, “Nobody can advise you and help you,
nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.”
(Of course, he went on
to tell the kid how a poet should feel, love and seek truth, but…)
Rilke absorbed influences
from all the arts and all the artists he knew. Today’s poem, “Aus einem April” reflects
the kind of Art Nouveau period I love and associate with Prague, Vienna, Rodin
and the whole megillah. I’m making it my theme for National Poetry Month this
year.
“Aus einem April”
Wieder duftet der Wald.
Es heben die schwebenden Lerchen
mit sich den Himmel empor, der
unseren Schultern schwer war;
zwar sah man noch durch die Äste den
Tag, wie er leer war,-
aber nach langen, regnenden
Nachmittagen
kommen die goldübersonnten
neueren Stunden,
vor denen flüchtend an fernen
Häuserfronten
alle die wunden
Fenster furchtsam mit Flügeln
schlagen.
Dann wird es still. Sogar der Regen
geht leiser
über der Steine ruhig dunkelnden
Glanz.
Alle Geräusche ducken sich ganz
in die glänzenden Knospen der
Reiser.
“From April”
Again
the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts
on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That
hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where
branches bare disclosed the empty day.
After
long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes
with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them
at the windows in a radiant shower,
And
rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
Then
all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By
the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And
cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In
each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
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