Elegy Iv Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDECFE GHEEEIJEKKL EEMHNOPEQHRSTUCEVEW XYCHXGEGEEZ EA2EB2EC2KD2E2GF2G2H E2CH2QFI2CH REEEFEH2J2 K2L2M2EN2EM2CO2E2| 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 |
Rainer Maria Rilke
(1)
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About Elegy Iv
Elegy Iv is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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