From The Book of a Monastic Life

I, II

by Rainer Maria Rilke

You darkness, of whom I am born–

I love you more than the flame

that limits the world

to the circle it illumines

and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:

shapes and shadows, creatures and me.

people, nations–just as they are.

It lets me imagine

a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.

You can find this poem in Rilke’s Book of Hours.