The poem
You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you. I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. All the immense images in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods- all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house--, and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,-- you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, seperate, in the evening...
There are only a few "impossible love" poems that i like; and this is definitelly one of them, it expresses such a sorrow, that makes people feel connected in some way with Rainer Maria Rilke, i love it!!!
such sadness and longing. so beautiful...
This poem was given to me by a man I adore; he read it and thought of me. We are just friends, and he wants it to stay that way, as he is in love with another. A beautiful poem that summed up how I feel.
This beautiful poem eloquenlty conveys the wonder and heartache I've experienced each day musing over a remarkable woman I met and fell deeply in love with a decade ago. Our meeting was by chance and innocent; the relationship, and our new world, lasted but a few weeks; we were (and have remained) in reasonably positive marriages and healthy families; we disengaged out of obligation. Yet a day has not gone by -- in…
Read the whole commentThis beautiful poem eloquenlty conveys the wonder and heartache I've experienced each day musing over a remarkable woman I met and fell deeply in love with a decade ago. Our meeting was by chance and innocent; the relationship, and our new world, lasted but a few weeks; we were (and have remained) in reasonably positive marriages and healthy families; we disengaged out of obligation. Yet a day has not gone by -- in ten years -- that I have not deeply, profoundly experienced what Rilke describes. Ever so slowly have I begun to surrender, having "given up trying to recognize [her] in the surging wave of the next moment." She is "all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing." Indeed, "sometimes in a shop, the mirrors [are] still dizzy with [her] presence and, startled, [give] back my too-sudden image." And I have wondered so many times, "perhaps the same bird echoes through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening..."
Only a few lines into this poem, I couldn't help breaking into tears, not merely from Rilke's sublime evocation of unfulfilled longing, but out of recognition that he had captured my own predominant state in life. However, unlike some others commenting here (and not meaning to diminish your own genuine sentiments in any way), I have yet to meet or even identify the person whose absence is so conspicuous in my life,…
Read the whole commentOnly a few lines into this poem, I couldn't help breaking into tears, not merely from Rilke's sublime evocation of unfulfilled longing, but out of recognition that he had captured my own predominant state in life. However, unlike some others commenting here (and not meaning to diminish your own genuine sentiments in any way), I have yet to meet or even identify the person whose absence is so conspicuous in my life, yet for whom I continue to live, waiting -- and it is precisely that sensation of an unidentified absence I found so moving in Rilke's poem.
I keep expecting you could suddenly appear to me anywhere, anytime, yet you appear nowhere, at no time, thus far; all I have to go on are the vague memories of glimpses of your red hair from my dreams, the feeling of deja vu I get when I see a woman with red hair, thinking she might possibly resemble you, wondering if she might turn out to be you, disappionted when she isn't.
It's like Charlie Brown and the Little Red-Haired Girl, but what if he had never seen her, couldn't even admire her from a distance, didn't know who he was pining for, just that she might probably have red hair, might possibly appear at any moment, might live in the same town and walk the same streets, shop the same stores, eat at the same restaurants... just not at the same time.
How ironic, also, to discover Rilke was (briefly) married to Klara, a name resembling the Clare/Clara I thought I remember having heard in a vision once...
Sometime, somewhere, you who never arrived... will arrive. It's what I live for. So where are you?
The poignancy is in the poet's loneliness for an unknown Other, not one he has ever known or even seen. He cannot in any way imagine this person but knows he would be fulfilled. I am 70 years old and feel the same every day.