Analysis of The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XIII
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.
Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.
Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.
To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Scheme | AXAX XXXX XXX XXX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10111101110100 011101011111 101110111110010 1101111111101 101010111001 01010101011 1001101011001 1010111010111 101101111101 01001111101010 1111111110101 11111101101001 10001101011 10010101001 01011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 772 |
Words | 139 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3, 1 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 41 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 124 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 27 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
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"The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XIII" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29732/the-sonnets-to-orpheus%3A-book-2%3A-xiii>.
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