Sonnets To Orpheus I, 3
by R. M. Rilke
translated by H. Landman

A god can do it. How do you expect
a man to squeeze on through the lyre and follow?
His mind is torn. Where heartways intersect,
you won't find any temple to Apollo.

True singing, as you teach it, isn't wanting,
not wooing anything that can be won;
no, Singing's Being. For the god, not daunting.
But when are we? And when will he then turn

into our being all the Earth and Stars?
It isn't that you love, child, even if
the voice exploded from your mouth - begin

forgetting, that you sang. That disappears.
To sing in truth is quite a different breath.
A breath of void. A gust in the god. A wind.