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
- 301 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAXA BXBX XXX XXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 633 |
Words | 117 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3 |
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"Archaic Torso of Apollo" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29639/archaic-torso-of-apollo>.
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