Beautiful Cynicism III

Someday, emerging at last from the
violent insight,
let me sing out jubilation and praise to
assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck
hammers of my heart
fail to sound because of a slack, a
doubtful,
or an ill-tempered string. Let my joyfully
streaming face
make me more radiant; let my hidden
weeping arise
and blossom. How dear you will be to
me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more
deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering,
lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander
our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the
bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though
they are really
seasons of us, our winter-
enduring foliage, ponds, meadows, our
inborn landscape,
where birds and reed-dwelling creatures
are at home.

excerpt from The Tenth Elegy (original version)
Duino Elegies, Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell