Archaic Torso of Apollo

Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)



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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 22, 2023

35 sec read
297

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA BXBX XXX XXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 633
Words 117
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3

Rainer Maria Rilke

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke — better known as Rainer Maria Rilke — was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. more…

All Rainer Maria Rilke poems | Rainer Maria Rilke Books

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