(Rainer Maria Rilke) <br /> <br />He went up under the gray leaves <br />All gray and lost in the olive lands <br />And laid his forehead, gray with dust, <br />Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands. <br />After everything this. And this was the end. <br />-- Now I must go, as I am going blind. <br />And why is it Thy will that I must say <br />Thou art, when I myself no more can find Thee. <br />I find Thee no more. Not in me, no. <br />Not in others. Not in this stone, <br />I find Thee no more. I am alone. <br />I am alone with all men's sorrow -- <br />All that, through Thee, I thought to lighten, <br />Thou who art not, O nameless shame ... <br />Men said, later: an angel came. <br />Why an angel? Alas, there came the night, <br />And leafed through the trees, indifferently. <br />The disciples moved a little in their dreams. <br />Why an angel? Alas, there came the night. <br />The night that came was no uncommon night: <br />So hundreds of nights go by. <br />There dogs sleep; there stones lie, <br />Alas a sorrowful, alas any night <br />That waits till once more it is morning. <br />For then beseech: the angels do not come, <br />Never do nights grow great around them. <br />Who lose themselves, all things let go; <br />They are renounced by their own fathers <br />And shut from their own mothers' hearts.<br /><br />Randall Jarrell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-olive-garden/
