Laudator Temporis Acti

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (tr. Stephen Mitchell):

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

German original ("Archaïscher Torso Apollos"):

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.

Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. MA 2792: Gisela M.A. Richter, Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youth, 3rd ed. (London: Phaidon, 1970), pp. 149-150 (number 192):

PARIS, Louvre, no. MND 2792. From Miletos.

Torso of a colossal statue, from below neck to above left knee.
Island marble (Parian?).
Height 1.32 m.
Found in the theatre of Miletos during excavations by O. Rayet and A. Thomas and given to the Louvre in 1873 by Gustave and Edmond de Rothschild. Perhaps came from the sanctuary of Apollo that was destroyed by the Persians in 494 B.C.
Rayet and Thomas, Milet et le golf lamique [sic, read latmique], pl. 20, r.
L. Curtius, Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmäler, text to pls. 601-4, pp. 12 ff.
Charbonneaux, Mon. Piot, XIV, 1951, pp. 47 ff., pl. VI.
Catalogue des marbres antiques, Musée du Louvre, p. 151, no. 2792.
Kunze and Schleif, III. Olympia Bericht, 1938/39, p. 130.

GENERAL STRUCTURE. Seen in profile, greatest protrusion of back level with that of chest. Vertebral column forms S-shaped curve.
Powerfully modelled. Clavicles, trapezium, serratus magnus, thorax, rectus abdominis, flanks, lower boundary of abdomen, shoulder-blades, spinal furrow, erector spinae, depression over great trochanter all modelled in naturalistic manner. Right flank and buttock higher than left. Navel represented as a knob inside a depression, with a fold of skin above it. Pubes rendered as a raised, stylized plane, with upper edge rising to a central point.

I don't have access to Andreas Linfert, "Der Torso von Milet," Antike Plastik 12 (1973) 81–90, fig. 7–12, pl. 21-26.