Analysis of Girl in Love

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



That's my window. This minute
So gently did I alight
From sleep--was still floating in it.
Where has my life its limit
And where begins the night?

I could fancy all things around me
Were nothing but I as yet;
Like a crystal's depth, profoundly
Mute, translucent, unlit.

I have space to spare inside me
For the stars, too: so full of room
Feels my heart; so lightly
Would it let go of him, whom

For all I know I have started
To love, it may be to hold.
Strange, as if never charted,
Stares my fortune untold.

Why is it I am bedded
Beneath this infinitude,
Fragrant like a meadow,
Hither and thither moved,

Calling out, yet fearing
Someone might hear the cry,
Destined to disappearing
Within another I.


Scheme ABXAB CXCA CDCD EFEF XAXX GHGH
Poetic Form
Metre 1110110 1101101 11111001 1111110 010101 111011011 0101111 10101010 10101 11111011 10111111 111110 1111111 11111110 1111111 1111010 111001 1111110 0111 10101 10011 101110 11101 101010 010101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 684
Words 132
Sentences 8
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 22
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

40 sec read
91

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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