Poems from the Book of Hours
First published in 1941 by New Directions as part of the Poets of the Year Series, Babette Deutsch's now classic translations from Rainer Maria Rilke's The Book of Hours ("Das Stundenbuch") are available at last in a paperbound edition. The original German text, as in the earlier book, appears en face. "Rilke's Book of Hours," Miss Deutsch writes in her preface, "falls into three parts: The Book of Monkish Life (1899), The Book of Pilgrimage (1901), and The Book of Poverty and Death (1903)....
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A beautiful bilingual gift book of poems: selections from Rilke’s legendary masterpiece, The Book of Hours, with a new introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Preface3Now the hour bows down, it touches me, throbs11You, neighbor God, if sometimes in the night13If only there were stillness, full, complete15I read it in your word, and learn it from17I am, you anxious one. Do you not hear me19No, my life is not this precipitous hour21If I had grown up in a land where days23In all these things I cherish as a brother27We are all workmen: prentice, journeyman29What will you do, God, when I die?31The first word that you ever spoke was: light33The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face35Put out my eyes, and I can see you still37Although, as from a prison walled with hate39You are the future, the great sunrise red41The sovereigns of the world are old43All will grow great and powerful again45Already ripening barberries grow red47Do not be troubled, God, though they say "mine"49
\ Choice“One of the pillars of twentieth century poetry.”\ \
