Page:Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (1918).djvu/58

 THE BOY

I wish I might become like one of these

Who, in the night on horses wild astride,

With torches flaming out like loosened hair

On to the chase through the great swift wind ride.

I wish to stand as on a boat and dare

The sweeping storm, mighty, like flag unrolled

In darkness but with helmet made of gold

That shimmers restlessly. And in a row,

Behind me in the dark, ten men that glow

With helmets that are restless, too, like mine,

Now old and dull, now clear as glass they shine.

One stands by me and blows a blast apace

On his great flashing trumpet and the sound

Shrieks through the vast black solitude around

Through which, as through a wild mad dream we race.

The houses fall behind us on their knees,

Before us bend the streets and them we gain,

The great squares yieled [sic] to us and them we seize—

And on our steeds rush like the roar of rain.

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