The Sonnets To Orpheus: XXV
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
But you now, dear girl, whom I loved like a flower whose
name
I didn't know, you who so early were taken away:
I will once more call up your image and show it to them,
beautiful companion of the unsubduable cry.
Dancer whose body filled with your hesitant fate,
pausing, as though your young flesh had been cast in bronze;
grieving and listening--. Then, from the high dominions,
unearthly music fell into your altered heart.
Already possessed by shadows, with illness near,
your blood flowed darkly; yet, though for a moment
suspicious,
it burst out into the natural pulses of spring.
Again and again interrupted by downfall and darkness,
earthly, it gleamed. Till, after a terrible pounding,
it entered the inconsolably open door.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 39 sec read
- 143 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXXXX XXAX XXBC BCX X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 761 |
Words | 130 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 4, 3, 1 |
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