Sonnet XIV from Sonnets to Orpheus

Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly,
to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate.
And if they are sad about how they must wither and die,
perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret.

All Things want to fly. Only *we* are weighed down by desire,
caught in ourselves and enthralled with our heaviness.
Oh what consuming, negative teachers we are
for them, while eternal childhood fills them with grace.

If someone were to fall into intimate slumber, and slept
deeply with Things - : how easily he would come
to a different day, out of the mutual depth.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Or perhaps he would stay there; and they would blossom and praise
their newest convert, who is now like one of them,
all those silent companions in the wind of the meadows.