He felt the entrance's green darkness
wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak
that he was still accepting and arranging;
when at the opposite transparent end, far off,
through green sunlight, as through green window panes,
whitely a solitary shape
flared up, long remaining distant
and then finally, the downdriving light
boiling over it at every step,
bearing on itself a bright pulsation,
which in the blond ran shyly to the back.
But suddenly the shade was deep,
and nearby eyes lay gazing
from a clear new unselfconscious face,
which, as in a portrait, lived intensely
in the instant things split off again:
first there forever, and then not at all.
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Comments2"Green sunlight, green window panes" really captures imagination. Love it!
ENCOUNTER IN THE CHESTNUT AVENUE BY RAINER MARIA RILKE REALLY STOOD THE TEST OF TIME! I READ THIS POEM MANY YEARS AGO AND IT STILL GIVES ME THE SAME FEELINGS OF MYSTERY AND ENTRANCEMENT. RILKE REALLY HAD AN INCREDIBLE WAY WITH WORDS, FEELS LIKE I'M RIGHT THERE IN THE SCENE HE'S PAINTING. TRULY MASTERFUL!