Reading poetry in translation is a different experience from reading prose in translation, because poetry's effects are so dependent on sound. The best translation of a poem into English that originated in another language is not the one that most closely preserves the meaning — it's the one that finds English sounds and rhythms that create an equivalent effect.

This is why different translators of Rilke produce such different books. Stephen Mitchell's Rilke is musical and accessible. J.B. Leishman's Rilke is more faithful to the meter of the originals and less immediately beautiful to an English ear. Both translations are honest about the trade-off they're making.

I've come to appreciate this as a kind of abundance. A poem that has been translated ten times is a poem that has produced ten readings, each of which illuminates something the original contains. You can read all ten and understand the poem more completely than any one translation would allow.