The Song Of The Beggar

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



I am always going from door to door,
whether in rain or heat,
and sometimes I will lay my right ear in
the palm of my right hand.
And as I speak my voice seems strange as if
it were alien to me,

for I'm not certain whose voice is crying:
mine or someone else's.
I cry for a pittance to sustain me.
The poets cry for more.

In the end I conceal my entire face
and cover both my eyes;
there it lies in my hands with all its weight
and looks as if at rest,
so no one may think I had no place where-
upon to lay my head.

Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 16, 2023

36 sec read
398

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXXXB CXBA XXXXXX C
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 544
Words 119
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 4, 6, 1

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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