Analysis of Death
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,
unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:
as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee:
the wood that long resisted the advancing flames
which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig
and burn in thee.
My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury
has turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent.
Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn?
Memories I do not seize and bring inside.
O life! O living! O to be outside!
And I in flames. And no one here who knows me.
Scheme | XABXAB BXXXXX XCCB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111110 010010111010 1101101111101 011101000101 111101111 0101 1100110111010 1101010111111 111111010110 01010010111100 111101111101 10110101110 111111110101 10011110101 1111011111 01010111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 729 |
Words | 141 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 191 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 20, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 289 Views
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"Death" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29649/death>.
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