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"Rose, o pure contradiction, desire to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids." This was ’s self-composed epitaph, written before leukemia took his life on December 29, 1926. The rose was a symbol of love, beauty, and devotion in many of Rilke’ ....

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.... to unfold. Rilke spent the next years traveling to different places and meeting new people because he believed poetry was as much made up of experiences, as it was emotions. It was his travels to Russia, though, that marked the beginning of his serious works when the Book of Hours was published in 1905. Rilke would continue to travel to places such as Italy, Spain, Egypt, and Paris. While he was in Paris he developed a new style of lyrical poetry, influenced by the visual arts of the great sculptor Rodin. These poems would turn out to be New Poems published in 1908. In his later life, Rilke moved to Switzerland, where he completed Duino Elegies ....