“The angel of the Elegies is that creature in whom the transformation of the visible into the invisible, which we are accomplishing, already appears in its completion . . . ; that being who guarantees the recognition of a higher level of reality in the invisible.—Therefore ‘terrifying’ for us, because we, its lovers and transformers, still cling to the visible.”

(note on p. 317 of The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, ed. & trans. Stephen Mitchell.)