Death
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:as I in my spirit burned, see,
I now burn in thee:the wood that long resisted the advancing flameswhich thou kept flaring,
I now am nourishingand burn in thee.
My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless furyhas turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future planning,
I mountedthe tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent.
Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn?
Memories I do not seize and bring inside.
O life!
O living!
O to be outside!
And I in flames.
And no one here who knows me. [Written in December 1926, this poem was the lastentry in Rilke's notebook, less than two weeks before hisdeath at age 51.]Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Rainer Maria Rilke
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