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Interior Portrait
Translations © by Grant Hicks
Song Cycle by Gordon Ware Binkerd (1916 - 2003)
View original-language texts alone: Portrait intérieur
Le sublime est un départ. Quelque chose de nous qui au lieu de nous suivre, prend son écart et s'habitue aux cieux. La rencontre extrême de l'art n'est-ce point l'adieu le plus doux ? Et la musique : ce dernier regard que nous jetons nous-mêmes vers nous !
Text Authorship:
- by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/5, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 33, first published 1926
See other settings of this text.
Confirmed with The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, Saint Paul: Greywolf Press, 1986, Page 176.
The sublime is a departure. Something in us that instead of following us, takes its own path and accustoms itself to the heavens. The extreme encounter with art: isn't it the sweetest farewell of all? And music: that last glance that we ourselves cast towards ourselves.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/5, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 33, first published 1926
Go to the general single-text view
Translations of titles:
"Le sublime est un départ" = "The sublime is a departure"
"Vergers XXXIII" = "Orchards XXXIII"
This text was added to the website: 2025-08-11
Line count: 8
Word count: 46
Ce ne sont pas des souvenirs qui, en moi, t'entretiennent ; tu n'es pas non plus mienne par la force d'un beau désir. Ce qui te rend présente, c'est le détour ardent qu'une tendresse lente décrit dans mon propre sang. Je suis sans besoin de te voir apparaître ; il m'a suffi de naître pour te perdre un peu moins.
Text Authorship:
- by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), "Portrait intérieur", appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 31
See other settings of this text.
Confirmed with The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, Saint Paul: Greywolf Press, 1986, Page 174.
It isn't memories that keep you alive for me; nor are you mine by dint of a beautiful desire. What keeps you with me is the ardent detour that a slow tenderness describes in my own blood. I have no need to see you appear; being born was enough for me to lose you a little less.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), "Portrait intérieur", appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 31
Go to the general single-text view
Translations of titles:
"Ce ne sont pas des souvenirs" = "It isn't memories"
"Il m'a suffi de naître" = "Being born was enough for me"
"Portrait intérieur" = "Interior Portrait"
"Portrait intérieure" = "Interior Portrait"
This text was added to the website: 2025-08-08
Line count: 12
Word count: 57
Comment encore reconnaître ce que fut la douce vie ? En contemplant peut-être dans ma paume l'imagerie de ces lignes et de ces rides que l'on entretient en fermant sur le vide cette main de rien.
Text Authorship:
- by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/1925, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 32
See other settings of this text.
How to recognize again what was the good life? Possibly by contemplating the imagery in my palm of these lines and these ridges that one maintains by closing on the void this hand of nothing.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/1925, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 32
Go to the general single-text view
Translations of titles:
"Comment encore reconnaître" = "How to recognize again"
This text was added to the website: 2025-08-11
Line count: 8
Word count: 35
Tel cheval qui boit à la fontaine, telle feuille qui en tombant nous touche, telle main vide, ou telle bouche qui nous voudrait parler et qui ose à peine -, autant de variations de la vie qui s'apaise, autant de rêves de la douleur qui somnole: ô que celui dont le coeur est à l'aise, cherche la créature et la console.
Text Authorship:
- by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 43
See other settings of this text.
The horse that drinks at the fountain, the leaf that touches us in falling, the empty hand, or the mouth that would speak to us but hardly dares— so many variations of subsiding life, so many dreams of slumbering pain: O that he whose heart is at ease would seek out the creation and console it.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 43
Go to the general single-text view
Translations of titles:
"Tel cheval qui boit à la fontaine" = "The horse that drinks at the fountain"
This text was added to the website: 2025-08-11
Line count: 8
Word count: 56