Child in Red

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



Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 08, 2023

38 sec read
262

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBXX XXXX XXXX XABX AAXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 672
Words 125
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 4, 4, 4, 4

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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