The Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke.Translation by Steven Rendall

His gaze has grown weary of sweeping the bars
And has ceased to hold anything at all. 
For him it's as though there were a thousand bars
And behind those thousand bars no world.

The lithe pacing on strong, padded paws
Turning in the tiniest of circles
Is like a dance of power round a center
In which a great benumbed will stands. 

Only the pupil's curtain sometimes rises
Soundlessly.  Then an image enters,
Traverses the tensed stillness of the limbs,
And in the heart comes to its end.