Poetry 28 August 2019 from Les Roses A new poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Paul Batchelor. PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images Sign UpGet the New Statesman\'s Morning Call email. Sign-up Familiar rose, so implicated in our memories as in a dream where you advance upon your perfect form – whose silence surpasses the choir’s echo; who triumphs in the rose window or, held between two lovers, disappears. Paul Batchelor is the author of “The Sinking Road” (Bloodaxe) › Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World: stark, intimate and complex This article appears in the 30 August 2019 issue of the New Statesman, The long shadow of Hitler