Sacrifice to the Lares (1895), the collection of poems written by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) when he was only twenty years of age, is dedicated entirely to his hometown of Prague. Like a poetic guide he takes the reader through the Golden City, looks down from the Hradschin at its spires, cupolas, and palaces, relates its history and commemorates its people. While ethnic tensions in the country were continuously increasing at the end of the nineteenth century, the Czech, German and Jewish people still form a natural unity in the Sacrifice of the Lares – thus Rilke’s poems continue to give life to a city that no longer exists.