My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
in which you see me hurrying.
Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree;
I am only one of many mouths
and at that, the one that will be the soonest.
I am the rest between the notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because death’s note wants to climb over –
but in the dark interval reconciled,
they stay there trembling.
And the song goes on, beautiful.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours