June 12, 2020

THE PANTHER BY RAINER MARIA RILKE


THE PANTHER BY RAINER MARIA RILKE 


His vision, from the constantly passing bars, 

has grown so weary that it cannot hold 

anything else. It seems to him there are 

a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. 

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, 

the movement of his powerful soft strides 

is like a ritual dance around a centre 

in which a mighty will stands paralysed. 

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils 

lifts, quietly. An image enters in, 

rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, 

plunges into the heart and is gone.