Love Song

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



How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

29 sec read
282

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHCIIJ
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 489
Words 94
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12

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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