In _The Book of Pictures_, Rilke's art reaches its culmination on what might be termed its monumental side. The visualization is elevated to the impersonal objective level which gives to the rhythm of these poems an imperturbable calm, to the figures presented a monumental erectness. _The Men of the House of Colonna_, _The Czars_, _Charles XII Riding Through the Ukraine_ are portrayed each with his individual historical gesture, with a luminosity as strong as the colour and movement which they gave to their time. In the mythical poem, _Kings in Legends_, this concrete element in the art of Rilke has found perhaps its supreme expression: "Kings in old legends seem Like mountains rising in the evening light. They blind all with their gleam, Their loins encircled are by girdles bright, Their robes are edged with bands Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords-- With richly jeweled hands They hold their slender, shining, naked swords." There are in _The Book of Pictures_ poems in which this will to concentrate a mood into its essence and finality is applied to purely lyrical poems as in _Initiation_, that stands out in this volume like "the great dark tree" itself so immeasurable is the straight line of its aspiration reaching into the far distant silence of the night; or as in the poem entitled _Autumn_, with its melancholy mood of gentle descent in all nature. In _The Book of Hours_, Rilke withdraws from the world not from weariness but weighed down under the manifold conflicting visions. As the prophet who would bring to the world a great possession must go forth into the desert to be alone until the kingdom comes to him from within, so the poet must leave the world in order to gain the deeper understanding, to be face to face with God. The mood of _Das Stunden-Buch_ is this mood of being face to face with God; it elevates these poems to prayer, profound prayer of doubt and despair, exalted prayer of reconciliation and triumph. _The Book of Hours_ contains three parts written at different periods in the poet's life: _The Book of a Monk's Life_ (1899); _The Book of Pilgrimage_ (1901), and _The Book of Poverty and Death_ (1903), although the entire volume was not published until several years later. _The Book of Hours_ glows with a mystic fervour to know God, to be near him. In this desire to approach the Nameless One, the young Brother in _The Book of a Monk's Life_ builds up about God parables, images and legends reminiscent of those of the 17th century Angelus Silesius, but sustained by a more pregnant language because exalted by a more ardent visionary force. The motif of _The Monk's Life_ is expressed in the poem beginning with the lines: "I live my life in circles that grow wide And endlessly unroll."