Rilke

THE BOY

I want to be like one of those
who drive through the night with wild horses,
with torches, which like unloosened hair
blow in the great wind of their pursuit.
I want to stand in front as in a skiff,
huge and unfurled like a flag.
Dark, but with a helmet of gold that
gleams restlessly. And lined up behind me
ten men of that same darkness
with helmets that fret as mine does,
now clear as glass, now dark, old, and blind.
And one at my side blasts us space
with his trumpet, which flashes and screams out,
and blasts us a black solitude
through which we race like a rapid dream:
the houses fall to their knees behind us,
the squares try to evade us: we seize them,
and our horses sweep down like rain.

Rainer Maria Rilke