Telling You All

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



Telling you all would take too long.
Besides, we read in the Bible
how the good is harmful
and how misfortune is good.

Let's invite something new
by unifying our silences;
if, then and there, we advance,
we'll know it soon enough.

And yet towards evening,
when his memory is persistent,
one belated curiousity
stops him before the mirror.

We don't know if he is frightened.
But he stays, he is engrossed,
and, facing his reflection,
transports himself somewhere else.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

25 sec read
429

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAAB XXXX XXBX XXXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 460
Words 82
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

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…

All Rainer Maria Rilke poems | Rainer Maria Rilke Books

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