The Swan

"The Swan" by Rainer Maria Rilke; translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

 

This laboring of ours

with all that remains undone,

 as if still bound to it,

 is like the lumbering gait of the swan.

 

And then our dying—releasing ourselves

from the very ground on which we stood—

 is like the way he hesitantly

 lowers himself into the water.

 

 It gently receives him, and, gladly yielding,

flows back beneath him, as wave follows wave,

 while he, now wholly serene and sure,

with regal composure, allows himself to glide.