Explore "Music" by Rainer Maria Rilke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
What play you, O Boy? Through the garden it stole / Like wandering steps, like a whisper -- then mute; / What play you, O Boy? Lo! your gypsying soul / Is caught and held fast in the pipes of Pan's flute.
And what conjure you? Imprisoned is the song, / It lingers and longs in the reeds where it lies; / Your young life is strong, but how much more strong / Is the longing that through your music sighs.
Let your flute be still and your soul float through / Waves of sound formless as waves of the sea, / For here your song lived and it wisely grew / Before it was forced into melody.
Its wings beat gently, its note no more calls, / Its flight has been spent by you, dreaming Boy! / Now it no longer steals over my walls -- / But in my garden I'd woo it to joy.