O tell me, poet, what do you do? – I praise.
Yet deadly, what monstrous goes darkly,
how do you endure it, how do you accept it? – I praise.
Yet, poet, how do you call by true name
the nameless, the anonymous? – I praise.
From where have you taken the right, that with truthful counsel
in every costume, in every mask? – I praise.
That the silence knows you, thunder as it roars fierce
like a star, does the storm know? – Because I praise.
(Rainer Maria Rilke /1875–1926/, Untitled, 1921;
Translation by Holan, adapted by M. Koupilová)
