Explore "Maidens. I" by Rainer Maria Rilke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Others must by a long dark way / Stray to the mystic bards, / Or ask some one who has heard them sing / Or touch the magic chords. / Only the maidens question not / The bridges that lead to Dream; / Their luminous smiles are like strands of pearls / On a silver vase agleam.
The maidens' doors of Life lead out / Where the song of the poet soars, / And out beyond to the great world -- / To the world beyond the doors.