Analysis of The Grown-Up
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
All this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.
As she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves with a full jug. Till in the midst of play,
transfiguring and preparing for the future,
the first white veil descended, gliding softly
over her opened face, almost opaque there,
never to be lifted off again, and somehow
giving to all her questions just one answer:
In you, who were a child once-in you.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Scheme | XAAXA BXXBXBX XXBX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110100101 01010111101 11110111 1101010111 01011010101 1101111110 0111010011 0110111 0100101010010 11011100111 100101010 01110101010 1001011011 10111010101 10110101110 011001101 01011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 710 |
Words | 128 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 7, 4, 1 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 141 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 32 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 212 Views
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"The Grown-Up" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29719/the-grown-up>.
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