He felt the entrance's green darkness
wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak
that he was still accepting and arranging;
when at the opposite transparent end, far off,
through green sunlight, as through green window panes,
whitely a solitary shape
flared up, long remaining distant
and then finally, the downdriving light
boiling over it at every step,
bearing on itself a bright pulsation,
which in the blond ran shyly to the back.
But suddenly the shade was deep,
and nearby eyes lay gazing
from a clear new unselfconscious face,
which, as in a portrait, lived intensely
in the instant things split off again:
first there forever, and then not at all.
Translated by Edward Snow
Encounter In The Chestnut Avenue
Rainer Maria Rilke
(1)
Poem topics: light, snow, forever, deep, shade, long, clear, bright, face, shape, split, step, suddenly, sunlight, window, portrait, green, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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