Haunted by the death of a friend's daughter, Rainer Maria Rilke spent three feverish weeks writing Sonnets to Orpheus. At around the same time, he completed The Duino Elegies, which offer meditations on love, death, God, and the meaning of life. Intimately connected in themes, these verses are regarded as the poet's masterpieces and appear here in the acclaimed translations by Jessie Lemont.