The Poet Speaks of Praising
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Oh speak, poet, what do you do?
--I praise.
But the monstrosities and the murderous days,
how do you endure them, how do you take them?
--I praise.
But the anonymous, the nameless grays,
how, poet, do you still invoke them?
--I praise.
What right have you, in all displays,
in very mask, to be genuine?
--I praise.
And that the stillness and the turbulent sprays
know you like star and storm?
:--because I praise.
December, 1921
(from Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties, ed. and trans. by John J. L. Mood, Norton, 1975)