“The next tide will erase the way through the mudflats,
and everything will be again equal on all sides;
but the small, far-out island already has its
eyes closed; bewildered, the dike draws a circlearound its inhabitants who were born
into a sleep in which many worlds
are silently confused, for they rarely speak,
and every phrase is like an epitaph.”

—  Rainer Maria Rilke , book New Poems

Die nächste Flut verwischt den Weg im Watt,
und alles wird auf allen Seiten gleich;
die kleine Insel draußen aber hat
die Augen zu; verwirrend kreist der Deich<p>um ihre Wohner, die in einem Schlaf
geboren werden, drin sie viele Welten
verwechseln schweigend, denn sie reden selten,
und jeder Satz ist wie ein Epitaph
Die Insel I (The Island I) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)

Original

Die nächste Flut verwischt den Weg im Watt, und alles wird auf allen Seiten gleich; die kleine Insel draußen aber hat die Augen zu; verwirrend kreist der Deich<p>um ihre Wohner, die in einem Schlaf geboren werden, drin sie viele Welten verwechseln schweigend, denn sie reden selten, und jeder Satz ist wie ein Epitaph

Neue Gedichte (New Poems) (1907)

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Rainer Maria Rilke 176
Austrian poet and writer 1875–1926

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