Wolle die Wandlung - Rilke

[David]

Want the transformation. Go crazy for the flame
in which something escapes you, something that boasts of its changes;
that designing spirit, that has mastered the earthly,
loves nothing in the swing of the scheme like the turning point.

What shuts itself in stasis is already frozen,
thinking itself safe in the guard of grey obscurity,
but wait, what is hardest warns from afar what's merely hard,
and the unseen hammer is ready to descend.

Whoever flows forth like a fountain is recognised by Knowing,
and she leads him, enraptured, through the serene Creation
that often ends by beginning and begins at the end.

Every happy space is the child or grandchild of parting,
through which they go, astonished. Altered Daphne,
feeling herself turn laurel, wants you to become the wind.

[Lake]

David,

It reads pretty deep and philosophical, so it must be hard to translate; but it doesn't sound like a translation to me, to my foreign ear. So I'd say, good work. I like the lines:

that often ends by beginning and begins at the end.
and
Every happy space is the child or grandchild of parting,

reminds me another line which I thought so hard but just couldn't recall.

Thanks for sharing your translation, now I've had good examples to look up to.

Lake