Der Panther [English translation]

The Panther

In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars

has grown so weary, it can hold no more.

To him, there seem to be a thousand bars

and back behind those thousand bars no world.

The soft the supple step and sturdy pace,

that in the smallest of all circles turns,

moves like a dance of strength around a core

in which a mighty will is standing stunned.

Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides

up soundlessly — . An image enters then,

goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs —

and in the heart ceases to be.

• Artist:Rainer Maria Rilke