Sacrifice
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
How my body blooms from every vein
more fragrantly, since you appeard to me;
look, I walk slimmer now and straighter,
and all you do is wait-:who are you then?
Look: I feel how I'm moving away,
how I'm shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.
Only your smile spreads like sheer stars
over you and, soon now, over me.
Whatever shines through my childhood years
still nameless and gleaming like water,
I will name after you at the altar,
which is blazing brightly from your hair
and braided gently with your breasts.
Translated by Edward Snow
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 463 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XABX XXXA XBBXX X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 530 |
Words | 100 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 5, 1 |
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"Sacrifice" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29706/sacrifice>.
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