Rilke on Transience and Joy

And if one day all we do and suffer done
should seem suddenly trivial and strange,
as though it were no longer clear
why we should have kicked off our childhood shoes
for such things -- would not this length
of yellowed lace, this densely woven swatch
of linen flowers, be enough to hold us here?
See: this much was accomplished.

A life, perhaps, was made too little of, who knows?
a happiness in hand let slip; yet despite this,
for each loss there appeared in its place
this spun-out thing, not lighter than life,
and yet perfect, and so beautiful that all our so-be-its
are no longer premature, smiled at, and held in abeyance.

Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926