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“In April” by Rainer Maria Rilke 🇦🇹 (4 Dec 187529 Dec 1926)
Translated from the German by Jessie Lemont
Again the woods are odorous the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops veiled and dark
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.
After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.
Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches hidden deep
In each bright bud a slumbering silence lies.