Heartbeat
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
is, like his giant jubilation, far too
great for us. And so we tear ourselves away
from him time after time, remaining only
mouths. But unexepectedly and secretly
the giant heartbeat enters our being,
so that we scream ----,
and are transformed in being and in countenance.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 25 sec read
- 554 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXXXXAABXX B |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 482 |
Words | 86 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 1 |
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"Heartbeat" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29678/heartbeat>.
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