There's one other early poem I want to read.
Relatively, because it's the centenary
of the death of a great German poet called Rainer Maria Rilke.
And this is a rough translation of a poem by Rilke
about some ancestor of his called, I think,
coordinate Cornelius Rilke, or something
like this, who was a soldier.
I suppose during the Thirty Years' War, and anyhow.
This is and the series of short poems
by Rilke written when he was very young man himself.
It consist of letters sent home, I
suppose to his girlfriend or something,
from the battlefield.
And I think this is, I forget the original Rilke poem,
but I think this is a rough trans--, a very free version
or suggested by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Rolled over on Europe, the sharp dew frozen to stars below us.
Above our heads, the night frozen again to stars.
The stars in pools between our coats and that charmed moon.
What supports, what cross draws out
our arms heaves up our bodies towards the wind,
and hammers us between the mirrored light?
Only my body is real, which wolves
are free to oppress and gnaw.
Only this rose my friend laid on my breast,
and these few lines written from home are real.