The Grown-Up
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
All this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.
As she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves with a full jug. Till in the midst of play,
transfiguring and preparing for the future,
the first white veil descended, gliding softly
over her opened face, almost opaque there,
never to be lifted off again, and somehow
giving to all her questions just one answer:
In you, who were a child once-in you.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 212 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAAXA BXXBXBX XXBX X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 710 |
Words | 128 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 7, 4, 1 |
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"The Grown-Up" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29719/the-grown-up>.
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