Sonnets to Orpheus XIII, Part 2

--Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. Christiane Marks)

Be ahead of all parting, as if it were

behind you like the winter just passing now.

For among winters there's one such endless winter,

that, overwintering, your heart for all time overcomes.

Always be dead in Eurydice; with stronger song,

giving more powerful praise, re-ascend to pure relation.

Here, among the vanishing ones, in the realm of decline,

be as a ringing glass, already shattered by ringing.

Be, and know at the same time the terms of non-being—

endless reason for your intense vibration,

so you may perfectly, this one time, achieve it.

Count yourself in with the used as well as the dumb, dark

stores of bountiful nature, with the unsayable sums.

Count yourself, jubilantly, and cancel the count.