by Rainer Maria Rilke （Translated by Stephen Mitchell）

    We cannot know his legendary head

    with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

    is still suffused with brilliance from inside，

    like a lamp， in which his gaze， now turned to low，

    gleams in all its power. Otherwise

    the curved breast could not dazzle you so， nor could

    a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

    to that dark center where procreation flared.

    Otherwise this stone would seem defaced

    beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders

    and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur：

    would not， from all the borders of itself，

    burst like a star： for here there is no place

    that does not see you. You must change your life.