Les Roses

Abandon entouré d'abandon,
tendresse touchant aux tendresses...
C'est ton intérieur qui sans cesse
se caresse, dirait-on;

se caresse en soi-même,
par son propre reflet éclairé.
Ainsi tu inventes le thème
du Narcisse exaucé.

From "Les Roses", by Rainer Maria Rilke

Set to music by Morton Lauridsen: (the link is to an mp3 file - if you have difficulty playing it in your browser, you can always right-click and save - the file size is just under 6Mb)

dirait-on

one track from this amazing CD:

Lauridsen Lux Aeterna at amazon.com


Text for all of the rose poems may be found at the following link (scroll about three-quarter way down the page)

Rilke index