A Walk

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



My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Translated by Robert Bly

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

23 sec read
1,118

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXX AAXXX X
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 386
Words 78
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 5, 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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