Rainer Maria Rilke
Widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets, Rainer Maria Rilke was unique in his efforts to expand the realm of poetry through new uses of syntax and imagery and in an aesthetic philosophy that rejected Christian precepts and strove to reconcile beauty and suffering, life and death. As C. M. Bowra observed in Rainer Maria Rilke: Aspects of His Mind and Poetry, “Where others have found a unifying principle for themselves in religion or morality or the search for truth, Rilke found his in the search for impressions and the hope these could be turned into poetry... For him Art was what mattered most in life.”
Earth, my dearest, I will. Oh believe me, you no longer
need your
springtimes to win me over–one of them,
ah, even one, is already
too much for my blood.
Unspeakably I have belonged to you, from
the first.
You were always right, and your holiest inspiration
is our intimate companion, Death.
Look, I am living.
On what? Neither childhood nor future
grows any smaller...
Superabundant being
wells up in my heart.
— The Ninth Duino Elegy