Length1h 20m
About this audiobook
In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title
Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century.
This translation was the first to bring all the poems together in English and is enhanced by the translator's valuable introduction and a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (765)
Includes Goodreads, StoryGraph, Amazon, LibraryThing
GenrePoetry
Length1 hr 20 mins
Narrated byGeraint Rhys
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateOct 22, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Opening credits
2Acknowledgements
3Introduction
4The Siblings
5When your face consumes me
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6Once I took into my hands
7From face to face
8Look, angels sense through space
9Did I not breathe out of midnights
10So, now it will be the angel
11Away, I asked you finally to taste my smile
12Strong, silent, candelabra placed
13Out of this cloud, see the one that so wildly obscures
14Why must one go out and take alien things
15But for myself, when I find myself back in the cities'
16Straining so hard against the powerful night
17Overflowing skies of squandered stars
18Where I once was, or am there you are treading
19Thoughts of night, raised from intuited experience
20Often I gazed at you in wonder. I stood at the window begun yesterday
21I want to hold out. Act. Go over
22Ah, from an angel's touch falls
23Is pain – as soon as the ploughshare
24You who super-elevates me with this
25Lifting one's eyes from the book, from the close and countable lines
26Isn't there a smile? See, what is there
27Turned upwards to the nourishing one
28Why does the day persuade us
29(To the Angel)
30How did I hold out this face, that its feeling
31When I feed on your face this way
32Only now, at the nocturnal hour, am I without fear
33Now the red barberries are already ripening
34From a Stormy Night
35Night of the Spring Equinox
36Stars Behind Olives
37Nocturnal Walk
38Urban Summer Night
39Moonlit Night
40Like the evening wind
41At night I wish to converse with the angel
42Love the angel is space
43Night Sky and Falling Star
44From the Periphery Night
45Strong star, without need of support
46What reaches us with the starlight
47Earlier, how often, we stayed, star in star
48Biographical Notes_Rainer Maria Rilke
49Biographical Notes_Will Stone
50Closing credits
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