Hello and welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is brought to you by a famous bohemian Austrian poet named, and I'm going to try to not butcher his name here.

Reiner Maria Rilke.

He lived from 1875 to 1926, and he wrote primarily in German and French.

And he has a fairly well-known poem called Autumn Day, or Day in Autumn, depending on which

translation you look at. And autumn now being

upon us, it seemed the appropriate time to offer you this poem here on the daily poem.

I'm going to read a couple of different translations. Because he wrote in German, this

particular poem was written in German, I'm going to read a couple different translations, and then you'll be able to see some of the differences. Normally I'd read the poem

twice, but today I'll read a couple different translations of this and you can see how

translators made some interesting choices. And if you'd like to, you can go to, well, you can

just Google this poem and pretty easily find comparisons.

You'll see how different poets played even with the verse,

the way the lines end and how the lines cut off in the meter

and those different sorts of things in how they're presenting their translations.

This first translation is by Galway Kennel and Hannah Liebman in the Essential Rilke.

This is Autumn Day by Reiner Maria Rilke.

Lord, it is time.

The summer was immense.

Lay your shadow on the sun dials and let loose the wind in the fields bid the last fruits to be full

give them another two more southerly days press them to ripeness and chase the last sweetness into the heavy wine

...