Poems to Night

This collection of haunting, mystical poems of the night by the great Rainer Maria Rilke is the only English translation to bring them all together

In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing 22 poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century.

This translation was the 1st to bring all the poems together in English and is enhanced by the translator's valuable introduction and a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life, providing fascinating insight into Rilke’s development.

The poems recall all of the great poet’s important themes: death and longing, the troubling reconciliation of beauty and suffering, and a search for transcendance. These deep questions circle the imagery of night in Rilke’s intensely lyrical style: darkness, the stars and the moon wheel through the verses, and the play of light and dark beomes an evocation of life’s duality. No other poet was as singularly devoted to beauty or as capable of gifting its consolations to the reader—a volume to cherish on stormy nights and peaceful ones.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) is considered one of the greatest German-language writers to have ever lived. He published his first collection of verse, Leben und Lieder (Life and Songs), in 1894, while he was still at school, and continued to write poetry and prose throughout his life, becoming a master of both. He is perhaps best known for his Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus, and The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Rilke died in Switzerland in 1926, after being diagnosed with leukaemia, and was buried in the churchyard of Raron. His chosen epitaph was 'Rose, oh pure contradiction, to be no-one's sleep under so many lids.'

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. His previous translations include works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl as well as Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press.