The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: I

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



Breathing: you invisible poem! Complete
interchange of our own
essence with world-space. You counterweight
in which I rythmically happen.

Single wave-motion whose
gradual sea I am:
you, most inclusive of all our possible seas-
space has grown warm.

How many regions in space have already been
inside me. There are winds that seem like
my wandering son.

Do you recognize me, air, full of places I once absorbed?
You who were the smooth bark,
roundness, and leaf of my words.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

25 sec read
59

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXA XXXX XXA XXX X
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 499
Words 86
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3, 1

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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