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8.4
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(14
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We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
Rainer Maria Rilke
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Read poems about / on: change, star, power, smile, dark, life, running
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Comments about this poem (Archaic Torso of Apollo
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
) |
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comments about this poem (Archaic Torso of Apollo by
Rainer Maria Rilke
)
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Jeremy Trabue
(6/9/2008 2:39:00 PM) |
This translation is by Stephen Mitchell. It should be credited here.
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Tony Best
(10/9/2007 7:13:00 AM) |
Rilke wrote in german. One of my favorite poems, I love the last line 'you must change your life.' Rilke was a master. His years with Rodin certainly paid off, I love how he describes the torso. Also, the inner brillance, and how when looking at a masterpiece it reminds one of greek gods.
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Frank Lekens
(9/19/2007 9:31:00 AM) |
Rilke wrote in English?
Or did Babelfish translate this?
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