We wax for waning

 XXII (Sonnets to Orpheus - First part)


We wax for waning.
Count, though, Time's journeying
as but a little thing
in the Remaining.

End of unmeasured
hasting will soon begin;
only what's leisured
leads us within.

Boys, don't be drawn too far
into attempts at flight,
into mere swiftness. -- Look

how rested all things are:
shadow and fall of light,
blossom and book.





-- Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by J.B. Leishman)