Analysis of The Sonnets To Orpheus: XXV
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose
name
I didn't know, you who so early were taken away:
I will once more call up your image and show it to them,
beautiful companion of the unsubduable cry.
Dancer whose body filled with your hesitant fate,
pausing, as though your young flesh had been cast in bronze;
grieving and listening--. Then, from the high dominions,
unearthly music fell into your altered heart.
Already possessed by shadows, with illness near,
your blood flowed darkly; yet, though for a moment
suspicious,
it burst out into the natural pulses of spring.
Again and again interrupted by downfall and darkness,
earthly, it gleamed. Till, after a terrible pounding,
it entered the inconsolably open door.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Scheme | AXXXX XXAX XXBC BCX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111110101 1 11011111001001 11111111001111 1000101011 101101111001 101111111101 10010011011 010101011101 01001111101 11110111010 010 1110101001011 0100101011010 1011110010010 11001101 01011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 761 |
Words | 130 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 4, 3, 1 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 122 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
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"The Sonnets To Orpheus: XXV" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29737/the-sonnets-to-orpheus%3A-xxv>.
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