Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson and today is Friday, February 16th, 2004.

Today's poem is by Raina Maria Rilke, and it's called Love Song.

One of my favorite things about the poetry of Rilke is how, and I've mentioned this before

on the show, I think, that there has grown up around his poetry a whole tradition not

only of translating his works into English, but then also a whole secondary tradition of literary criticism writing and talking

about the translation of his poetry into English. There are whole books written on the subject

because he is able to write such evocative German poetry and yet leave room for various and sometimes very strikingly

different renditions into other languages.

So today I thought it would be enjoyable to read several different translations of this poem, Love Song, by Rilke,

with just a word or two about each, maybe as they finish.

The first is by Cliff Crago. It goes like this. How shall I hold on to my soul so that it does not

touch yours? How shall I lift it gently up over you onto other things? I would so very much like to tuck it away among lost objects in the dark, in some quiet,

unknown place, somewhere which remains motionless when your depths resound.

And yet everything which touches us, you and me me takes us together like a single bow,

drawing out from two strings but one voice,

on which instrument are we strong,

and which violinist holds us in the hand,

O sweet song.

So the poem begins with an apostrophe. This is the rhetorical device of addressing the absent thing or person.

And here there's this kind of consternation maybe.

There may be both great affection and a kind of tension in the rhetorical question,

...