The Sayable And the Unsayable

 . . . Ah, but what can one carry across

into that other relation? Not the art of seeing,

learned so slowly here, and no event that transpired here. Not one.

The pain, then. Above all, the hard labor of living,

the long experience of love, — all the purely

unsayable things. But later on,

among the stars, what then: there the unsayable reigns.

The traveler doesn't bring from the mountain slope

into the valley some handful of sod, around which all stand mute,

but a word he's gained, a pure word, the yellow and blue

gentian . . .

 . . . What if we're here just for saying: house,

bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit tree, window, —

at most: column, tower . . . but for saying, understand,

oh for such saying as the things themselves

never hoped so intensely to be. Isn't this the sly purpose

of the taciturn earth, when it urges lovers on:

that in their passion each single thing should find ecstasy?

Here is the time for the sayable, here is its home.

Speak and attest. More than ever

the things we can live with are falling away,

and ousting them, filling their place: a will with no image.

Will beneath crusts which readily crack

whenever the act inside swells and seeks new borders.

Between the hammers our heart

lives on, as the tongue,

even between the teeth, remains

unceasing in praise.

RILKE Duino Elegies: The Ninth Elegy (Translated by EDWARD SNOW)

(For AS Kline's line-by-line commentary on Rilke's Ninth Elegy, please click here.)