Presaging
Presaging - context Summary
Published in 1902
This short free-verse lyric appears in Rilke’s 1902 collection Das Buch der Bilder. It captures an early poetic voice focused on anticipation: the speaker senses an approaching storm before the world reacts, experiencing solitary, bodily readiness. The poem frames psychic foreknowledge as physical motion—bending, expanding, withdrawing—so that inner feeling and external tempest mirror one another without explicit narrative or explanation.
Read Complete AnalysesI am like a flag unfurled in space, I scent the oncoming winds and must bend with them, While the things beneath are not yet stirring, While doors close gently and there is silence in the chimneys And the windows do not yet tremble and the dust is still heavy— Then I feel the storm and am vibrant like the sea And expand and withdraw into myself And thrust myself forth and am alone in the great storm.
Translated by Jessie Lamont
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