In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented his friend Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems meticulously inscribed in his own hand and bearing the title Poems to Night. This evocative sequence of poems, which echoes some of the great themes of German romanticism, is now thought to represent one of the key stages in the creative breakthrough and spiritual evolution of the preeminent European poet of the twentieth century. This translation was the first to bring all the poems together in English and is enhanced by the translator’s valuable introduction and a rich selection of further poems Rilke dedicated to night at various stages of his life.
