The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XXIII
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Call to me to the one among your moments
that stands against you, ineluctably:
intimate as a dog's imploring glance
but, again, forever, turned away
when you think you've captured it at last.
What seems so far from you is most your own.
We are already free, and were dismissed
where we thought we soon would be at home.
Anxious, we keep longing for a foothold-
we, at times too young for what is old
and too old for what has never been;
doing justice only where we praise,
because we are the branch, the iron blade,
and sweet danger, ripening from within.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 107 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAXX XXXX BBC XXC A |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 580 |
Words | 109 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3, 1 |
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"The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XXIII" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29733/the-sonnets-to-orpheus:-book-2:-xxiii>.
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