Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
What Will You Do?Rainer Maria Rilke
From “Modern German Poems”
Translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
Translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
W
I am your jar (if cracked, I lie?)
Your well-spring (if the well go dry?)
I am your craft, your vesture I—
You lose your purport, losing me.
Empty of words that made it sweet.
I am the sandals your bare feet
Will seek and long for, wearily.
Your glance, that my warm cheeks have cheered
As with a cushion long endeared,
Will wonder at a loss so weird;
And, when the sun has disappeared,
Lie in the lap of alien stones.