Analysis of Parting

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



How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',
and feel it still: a dark, invincible,
cruel something by which what was joined so well
is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.

In what defenceless gaze at that I've stood,
which, as it, calling to me, let me go,
stayed there, as though it were all womanhood,
yet small and white and nothing more than, oh,

waving, now already unrelated
to me, a sight, continuing wave,--scarce now
explainable: perhaps a plum-tree bough
some perchinig cuckoo's hastily vacated.

Translated by J.B. Leishman


Scheme AXXA BCBC XDDX X
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111111 0111010100 10101111111 1111110101 01111111 1111011111 111110110 1101010111 101010010 11010100111 0100010111 1110100010 0101110
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 543
Words 98
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 1
Lines Amount 13
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 106
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

30 sec read
194

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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