Analysis of The Last Evening
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
And night and distant rumbling; now the army's
carrier-train was moving out, to war.
He looked up from the harpsichord, and as
he went on playing, he looked across at her
almost as one might gaze into a mirror:
so deeply was her every feature filled
with his young features, which bore his pain and were
more beautiful and seductive with each sound.
Then, suddenly, the image broke apart.
She stood, as though distracted, near the window
and felt the violent drum-beats of her heart.
His playing stopped. From outside, a fresh wind blew.
And strangely alien on the mirror-table
stood the black shako with its ivory skull.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Scheme | XXXA AXAX BXB XCC C |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 010101001010 1001110111 111101001 11110110110 1111101010 11010100101 11110111100 11000010111 1100010101 11110101010 01010011101 11011110111 010100101010 1011111001 01011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 646 |
Words | 114 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3, 1 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 206 Views
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