......even the most visible

of joys cannot be seen

until transformed-within.

Nowhere, beloved, does any

world exist save that within.

Life spends itself in

the act of transformation,

dissolving, bit by bit,

the world as it appeared.

Where stood a solid house

now stands a mental construct,

entirely conceptual, as though

its rafters supported a

rooftop in the very brain.

The spirit of our time has raised

storehouses of infernal powers,

edifices shapeless as the primal force

he wrenches from creation.

Temples are unknown to him.

It is we who try in secret

to perpetuate such wasteful

luxuriance of the heart.

Yes, if one thing survives

before which we genuflected,

which we served or worshiped,

it passes intact into the invisible.

Many, perceiving it no more,

fail to seize the chance to

build it up anew, with greater

pillars and more commanding statues

than in days of yore-within!

--from Seventh Duino Elegy; Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. by Robert Hunter)