Analysis of A Sybil

Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)



Long before our time they called her old,
But she'd walk down the same road every day.
Her age became too much to say
In years — and, like a forest's, would be told

In centuries. She comes to stand at dusk —
Her spot each time the same — and to foretell.
She is a hollow, wrinkled husk,
Dark as a fire-gutted citadel.

She has to turn her flock of talking loose
Or it will grow too crowded to relieve.
Flapping and screaming, words are flying all

Around her. Then, returning home to roost,
They find a perch beneath her eyebrows' eaves,
And in that shadow wait for night to fall.


Scheme ABBA CDCD XXE XXE
Poetic Form
Metre 1011011101 11110111001 01011111 0101010111 0100111111 0111010101 11010101 110101010 1111011101 1111110101 1001011101 0101010111 110101011 001111111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 583
Words 114
Sentences 8
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 111
Words per stanza (avg) 28
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

34 sec read
174

Rainer Maria Rilke

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke — better known as Rainer Maria Rilke — was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. more…

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