Analysis of I Am, O Anxious One

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



I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.


Scheme ABBCDEFEGHAIJ
Poetic Form
Metre 11110111111 1011111010 1111111101 0101010111 111010101 0101011111 1111111101 0111010101 11101011111 1111111111 0111111 0110101110 0101010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 552
Words 109
Sentences 8
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13
Lines Amount 13
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 430
Words per stanza (avg) 107
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

33 sec read
315

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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