Five Sonnets: To Orpheus

by Colin Matthews (b. 1946)

1.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Change though the world may as fast 
as cloud-collections, 
home to the changeless at last 
fall all perfections. 

Over the thrust and the throng, 
freer and higher, 
echoes your preluding song, 
god with the lyre. 

Sorrow we misunderstand, 
love we have still to begin, 
death and what’s hidden therein 

await unveiling. 
Song alone circles the land, 
hallowing and hailing.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Confirmed with Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, London, The Hogarth Press, 1949, p.71


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

2.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Where, in what ever-blissfully watered gardens, upon what trees, 
out of, oh, what gently dispetalled flower-cups do these 
so strange-looking fruits of consolation mature? 
Delicious, when, now and then, you pick one up in the poor 

trampled field of your poverty. Time and again you find 
yourself lost in wonder over the size of the fhiit, 
over its wholesomeness, over its smooth, soft rind, 
and that neither the heedless bird above nor jealous worm at  the root 

has been before you. Are there, then, trees where angels will  congregate, 
trees invisible leisurely gardeners so curiously cultivate, 
that, without being ours, they bear for us fruits like those? 

Have, we, then, never been able, we shadows and shades, 
with our doing that ripens too early and then as suddenly fades, 
to disturb that even-tempered summer’s repose?

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Confirmed with Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, London : The Hoghard Press, 1949, p.120


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

3.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Step now and then, you gentle-hearted, 
into the breath not breathed for you, 
let it blow over your cheeks, and, parted, 
quiver behind you, united anew. 

Blissful spirits no conflict harrows, 
starters, surely, of many a heart. 
Bows for arrows and targets for arrows, 
divinelier smiling through tears that smart. 

Be not afraid of suffering, render 
heaviness back to the earth again; 
mountains are heavy, and seas, and the tender 

trees that in childhood you set in their places 
have grown too heavy for you to sustain. 
Ah, but the breezes. . . ah, but the spaces. . .

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Confirmed with Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, London : The Hoghard Press, 1949, p.40


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

4.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Our life-long neighbours, flower, vine-leaf, fruit, 
they do not merely speak the season’s speech. 
These things so brightly manifest, that reach 
from darkness, gleam, it may be, with the mute 

envy of those through whom the earth grows strong. 
What do we know about the part they play? 
To mix their unused marrow \vith the clay 
has been their second-nature for so long. 

But do they do it of their own accords? 
Is it by sullen slaves that these clenched fruits 
are laboured and thrust forth to us, their lords? 

Are they the lords, who sleep beside the roots, 
and grant us, what their plenty never misses, 
this middle-thing, made of dumb strength and kisses?

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Confirmed with Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, London : The Hoghard Press, 1949, p.60


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

5.   [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Flowers, so faithful to earth that has sent them hither, 
whom we lend fate from the borders of fate — and yet 
who knows, when we think we see them regretfully wither, 
if it is not for us to be their regret? 

To all that would soar our selves are the grand aggravation, 
we lay them on all we encounter, proud of their weight; 
what terrifying teachers we are for that part of creation 
which loves its eternally childish state. 

Gould someone but take them right into his slumber and sleep 
deeply with things, how differently, lightly he’d wander 
back to a different day out of that communal deep. 

Or, it may be, he would stay, and they’d blossom and praise 
him, the converted, now one of them and all yonder 
silent brothers and sisters in woodlands and ways.

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Confirmed with Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, London : The Hoghard Press, 1949, p.114


Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
Total word count: 551