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Rainer Maria Rilke · Poems

Poem 7 of 51 · Book I

Solitude

— ✻ —

Solitude is like a rain
That from the sea at dusk begins to rise;
It floats remote across the far-off plain
Upward into its dwelling-place, the skies,
Then o'er the town it slowly sinks again.
Like rain it softly falls at that dim hour
When ghostly lanes turn toward the shadowy morn;
When bodies weighed with satiate passion's power
Sad, disappointed from each other turn;
When men with quiet hatred burning deep
Together in a common bed must sleep--
Through the gray, phantom shadows of the dawn
Lo! Solitude floats down the river wan ...

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