Rainer Maria Rilke, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

"We are not permitted to linger, even with what is most intimate. From images that are full, the spirit plunges on to others that suddenly must be filled; there are no lakes till eternity. Here, falling is best. To fall from the mastered emotion into the guessed-at, and onward."

"Our age has built itself vast reservoirs of power / formless as the straining energy that it wrests from the earth."

"Yet, no matter how deeply I go down into myself, my God is dark, and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence."

"Oh hours of childhood,when behind each shape more than the past appearedand what streamed out before us was not the f"

"As once the winged energy of delightcarried you over childhood's dark abysses,now beyond your own life build the greatarch of unimagined bridges. Wonders happen if we can succeedin passing through the harshest danger;but only in a bright and purely grantedachievement can we realize the wonder. To work with Things in the indescribablerelationship is not too hard for us;the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,and being swept along is not enough. Take your practiced powers and stretch them outuntil they span the chasm between twocontradictions... For the godwants to know himself in you."

"Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walkonly on feelings. That faces upwardand in its mirrorreceives heavenly roads, which travelalong themselves. That has learned to walk upon waterwhen it scoops,that walks upon wells,transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands,changes those that are like itinto a landscape:wanders and arrives within them,fills them with arrival."

"A billion stars go spinning through the night,glittering above your head,But in you is the presence that will bewhen all the stars are dead."

"For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."