What do these two verses mean?

These verses are hotly debated by experts and has never been resolved satisfactorily.
Here the rose is a symbol of sleep and the rose petals are reminiscent of closed eyelids.I think Rilke here compares rose petals to eyelids,and remarks that unlike eyelids,the petals conceal no desire for sleep.

This was Rilke’s epitaph, and cannot be called two verses. Technically,it is not even one verse.

Lots of debate over the ways of translating this:

Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch: Lust, niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter so viel Lidern.

From Rilke’s diary: “I invented a new form of caress: placing a rose gently on a closed eye until its coolness can no longer be felt; only the gentle petal will continue to rest on the eyelid like sleep just before dawn.”

Source;” Pages of overblown literary exegeses here if you have the time to wade through them.

Rose, pure contradiction, joy of being,
No one’s sleep under so many eyelids.

Rilke is attributing a veritable ‘joy of being’ to the rose. This is his perception, a projection onto the rose. He then presents a contradiction to his own perception.

From where does that contradiction arise?

It arises when, to his own mind, the rose, only sustains its joy of being by somehow serving his own joy of being. The contradiction lies within his interpretation of what joy of being is and what it must then, do.

He compares the silken petals of the rose to eyelids that invoke and protect sleep. However, no number of silken eyelids resting gently upon his eyes until no longer felt, have the power by their own presence to lull a human mind to sleep. That power must come from within, as must the joy of being.

Therefore he reveals the contradiction. It lies within perception, and the limitation with which we project meaning onto the world around us.

Just what do we expect of beauty? When we perceive ‘joy of being’, do we assume it is assigned the challenge of overseeing our evolution?

Mystics know that all beauty is a reflection of one’s own soul. The recognizing of beauty is perceptual prowess.

Contradiction to perceived beauty can only be human demands upon beauty. So self absorbed is the unrefined human ego, that it expects all it finds to be created to somehow serve its own cause. Therefore they seek that beauty to gift them.

In this inability lies a contradiction to the perfect beauty, in which they are immersed, and along with it, joy of being.

Perhaps even if it beauty could resurrect a sleeping mind, it would not be sanctioned to protect the dreaming reverie of a consciousness destined for wakefulness.

To a human mind, would not this inability introduce a contradiction if it perceives beauty as a symbol of order and potency?

But what IS order? The human mind has yet to understand how chaos remains connected to the perfect ordering of beauty.

Perhaps there is magnificent beauty within the graceful, violent thrashing of a hurricane, a thing called ‘terrible beauty’. To the human who must endure pain and loss because of it, the manner in which it does not support peaceful life is a contradiction to the limited concept of beauty held by our race.

Mystics know the one, true SELF in all selves is awake. That one never sleeps under the millions of human eyelids that close and dream. However, I don’t think he is eluding to this.

Therefore, I submit that Rilke is not speaking of the rose itself, but using it as a symbol to expound upon the workings of the human mind and human perception of beauty that, until seen for what they are, abscond away with one’s inherent, and ever present joy of being.

@Skylight :That was well explained!