On this date in 1875 the poet Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague. Rilke was a reactionary, aristocratic freeloader who wrote the greatest lyric poetry in the German language of the last century.  Everyone has their favorite Rilke poems; my favorites are the poems of Neue Gedichte (1918) – each one is a finely-sculpted miniature masterpiece.  In the Great War, young soldiers went their deaths ecstatically reading his poems; what poet writing today could so inspire men?

Here is a favorite:

Archaischer Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du musst dein Leben ändern.

(Translation by Stephen Mitchell)

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Rilke has a huge presence on the Web.  The International Rilke Gesellschaft can be found here. For English readers there is an archive of translations here. No need to go to Amazon to buy his poetry, since it can all be found here. Finally, take the Rilke Quiz.