The Rose Window (Ranier Maria Rilke)

In there: The lazy pacing of their paws
creates a stillness that's almost dizzying;
and how, then, suddenly one of the cats
takes the gaze on it, that strays now and then,
violently into its great eye --
The gaze that, as if seized by a whirlpool's
circle, for a little while swims
and then sinks and ceases to remember,
when this eye, which apparently rests,
opens and slams shut with a roaring
and tears it deep into the red blood -- :
Thus, long ago, out of the darkness
the cathedrals' great rose windows
seized a heart and tore it into God.

-- From New Poems
Transl. Edward Snow