Analysis of Palm

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



Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk
only on feelings. That faces upward
and in its mirror
receives heavenly roads, which travel
along themselves.
That has learned to walk upon water
when it scoops,
that walks upon wells,
transfiguring every path.
That steps into other hands,
changes those that are like it
into a landscape:
wanders and arrives within them,
fills them with arrival.


Scheme ABCDECFGHIJKLD
Poetic Form
Metre 0100101111111 1011011010 00110 011001110 0101 111110110 111 11011 11001 1101101 1011111 0101 10001011 111010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 390
Words 69
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 318
Words per stanza (avg) 67
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 22, 2023

20 sec read
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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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