Growing Old

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



In some summers there is so much fruit,
the peasants decide not to reap any more.
Not having reaped you, oh my days,
my nights, have I let the slow flames
of your lovely produce fall into ashes?

My nights, my days, you have borne so much!
All your branches have retained the gesture
of that long labor you are rising from:
my days, my nights. Oh my rustic friends!

I look for what was so good for you.
Oh my lovely, half-dead trees,
could some equal sweetness still
stroke your leaves, open your calyx?

Ah, no more fruit! But one last time
bloom in fruitless blossoming
without planning, without reckoning,
as useless as the powers of millenia.

Translated by A. Poulin

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

37 sec read
240

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXXX XXXX XXXX XAAB B
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 659
Words 124
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 4, 4, 4, 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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