The Last Evening

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



And night and distant rumbling; now the army's
carrier-train was moving out, to war.
He looked up from the harpsichord, and as
he went on playing, he looked across at her

almost as one might gaze into a mirror:
so deeply was her every feature filled
with his young features, which bore his pain and were
more beautiful and seductive with each sound.

Then, suddenly, the image broke apart.
She stood, as though distracted, near the window
and felt the violent drum-beats of her heart.

His playing stopped. From outside, a fresh wind blew.
And strangely alien on the mirror-table
stood the black shako with its ivory skull.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

34 sec read
206

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXA AXAX BXB XCC C
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 646
Words 114
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3, 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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