| Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916. | | | | Glimpse of a Childhood | | By Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) |
| | | THE DARKNESS in the room is pregnant, seeming | |
| To fold about the boy who hides himself; | |
| And when his mother enters, as if dreaming, | |
| A glass is trembling on the quiet shelf. | |
| She feels that now her entrance is betrayed, | 5 |
| And kisses her small boy: “Oh, you are there!”… | |
| They glance at the piano where she played | |
| On many evenings the beloved air | |
| That strangely on the child its magic laid. | |
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| He sits quite still. With wondering eyes he sees | 10 |
| Her hand, weighed down beneath the ring, and slow, | |
| As if it walked against a gale through snow, | |
| Move on the snow-white keys. | | | | |
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