Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy Poem Rhyme Scheme

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O trees of life oh what when winter comes	A
We are not of one mind Are not like birds	B
in unison migrating And overtaken	C
overdue we thrust ourselves into the wind	D
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds	E
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one	C
And somewhere lions roam quite unaware	F
in their magnificence of any weaknesss	E
	-
But we while wholly concentrating on one thing	G
already feel the pressure of another	H
Hatred is our first response And lovers	E
are they not forever invading one another's	E
boundaries although they promised space	E
hunting and homeland Then for a sketch	I
drawn at a moment's impulse a ground of contrast	J
is prepared painfully so that we may see	E
For they are most exact with us We do not know	K
the contours of our feelings We only know	K
what shapes them from the outside	L
	-
Who has not sat afraid before his own heart's	E
curtain It lifted and displayed the scenery	E
of departure Easy to understand The well known	M
garden swaying just a little Then came the dancer	H
Not he Enough However lightly he pretends to move	N
he is just disguised costumed an ordinary man	O
who enters through the kitchen when coming home	P
I will not have these half filled human masks	E
better the puppet It at least is full	Q
I will endure this well stuffed doll the wire	H
the face that is nothing but appearance Here out front	R
I wait Even if the lights go down and I am told	S
There's nothing more to come even if	T
the grayish drafts of emptiness come drifting down	U
from the deserted stage even if not one	C
of my now silent forebears sist beside me	E
any longer not a woman not even a boy	V
he with the brown and squinting eyes	E
I'll still remain For one can always watch	W
	-
Am I not right You to whom life would taste	X
so bitter Father after you for my sake	Y
slipped of mine that first muddy infusion	C
of my necessity You kept on tasting Father	H
as I kept on growing troubled by the aftertaste	X
of my so strange a future as you kept searching	G
my unfocused gaze you who so often since	E
you died have been afraid for my well being	G
within my deepest hope relinquishing that calmness	E
the realms of equanimity such as the dead possess	E
for my so small fate Am I not right	Z
	-
And you my parents am I not right You who loved me	E
for that small beginning of my love for you	A2
from which I always shyly turned away because	E
the distance in your features grew changed	B2
even while I loved it into cosmic space	E
where you no longer were and when I feel	C2
inclined to wait before the puppet stage no	K
rather to stare at is so intensely that in the end	D2
to counter balance my searching gaze an angel	E2
has to come as an actor and begin manipulating	G
the lifeless bodies of the puppets to perform	F2
Angel and puppet Now at last there is a play	G2
Then what we seperate can come together by our	H
very presence And only then the entire cycle	E2
of our own life seasons is revealed and set in motion	C
Above beyond us the angel plays Look	H2
must not the dying notice how unreal how full	Q
of pretense is all that we accomplish here where	F
nothing is to be itself O hours of childhood	I2
when behind each shape more that the past lay hidden	C
when that which lay before us was not the future	H
	-
We grew of course and sometimes were impatient	R
in growing up half for the sake of pleasing those	E
with nothing left but their own grown upness	E
Yet when alone we entertained ourselves	E
with what alone endures we would stand there	F
in the infinite space that spans the world and toys	E
upon a place which from the first beginnniing	H2
had been prepared to serve a pure event	J2
	-
Who shows a child just as it stands Who places him	K2
within his constellation with the measuring rod	L2
of distance in his hand Who makes his death	M2
from gray bread that grows hard or leaves	E
it there inside his rounded mouth jagged as the core	N2
of a sweet apple The minds of murderers	E
are easily comprehended But this to contain death	M2
the whole of death even before life has begun	C
to hold it all so gently within oneself	O2
and not be angry that is indescribable	E2
	-
	-
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming	H2

Rainer Maria Rilke

Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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