Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (1918)/Remembrance

by Rainer Maria Rilke

For works with similar titles, see Remembrance.

REMEMBRANCE

 

Expectant and waiting you muse
On the great rare thing which alone
To enhance your life you would choose:
The awakening of the stone,
The deeps where yourself you would lose.

 

In the dusk of the shelves, embossed
Shine the volumes in gold and browns,
And you think of countries once crossed,
Of pictures, of shimmering gowns
Of the women that you have lost.

 

And it comes to you then at last—
And you rise for you are aware
Of a year in the far off past
With its wonder and fear and prayer.