You who are close to my heart always, <br />I welcome you, ancient coffins of stone, <br />which the cheerful water of Roman days <br />still flows through, like a wandering song. <br /> <br />Or those other ones that are open wide <br />like the eyes of a happily waking shepard <br />-with silence and bee-suck nettle inside, <br />from which ecstatic butterflies flittered; <br /> <br />everything that has been wrestled from doubt <br />I welcome-the mouths that burst open after <br />long knowledge of what it is to be mute. <br /> <br />Do we know this, my friends, or don't we know this? <br />Both are formed by the hesitant hour <br />in the deep calm of the human face. <br /> <br /> <br />Translated by Stephen Mitchell<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sonnets-to-orpheus-x/
