Page:Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (1918).djvu/55

 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 11