The Sap is Mounting Back
by Rainer Maria Rilke
( translation: J. B. Leishman )
The Sap is Mounting Back from that unseeness
Darkly renewing in the common deep,
Back to the light, and feeding the pure greenness
Hiding in rinds round which the winds still weep.
The inner side of Nature is reviving, a
Another sursum corda will resound.
Invisibly, a whole year’s youth is striving
To climb those trees that look so iron bound.
Preserving still that grey and cool expression,
The ancient walnut’s filling with event;
While the young brush-wood trembles with repression
Under the perching bird’s presentiment