His vision, from the constantly passing bars, <br />has grown so weary that it cannot hold <br />anything else. It seems to him there are <br />a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. <br /> <br />As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, <br />the movement of his powerful soft strides <br />is like a ritual dance around a center <br />in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. <br /> <br />Only at times, the curtain of the pupils <br />lifts, quietly--. An image enters in, <br />rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, <br />plunges into the heart and is gone.<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-panther/
