His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars and behind the bars, no world.
As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly-. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Imagination & Visualization PoemsBased on Keywords: arrested, pupils, cramped, strides, plunges, paralyzed, tensed, quietly-