Elegy X Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGGHIAJAD KLMNGOGPQMRSTDDUH G VGQGRWSXYVHZG IGA2B2C2D2D2 HE2F2G2GH2I2 J2BH2HK2ML2DM2N2O2VP 2HGQ2R2D2GS2T2U2V2W2 X2DY2Z2 S2B2GGA3H2B3B2V Q2C3GGD3 AD KG MDJD E3AMF3That some day emerging at last from the terrifying vision | A |
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels | B |
That of the clear struck keys of the heart not one may fail | C |
to sound because of a loose doubtful or broken string | D |
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent | E |
That my humble weeping change into blossoms | F |
Oh how will you then nights of suffering be remembered | G |
with love Why did I not kneel more fervently disconsolate | G |
sisters more bendingly kneel to receive you more loosely | H |
surrender myself to your loosened hair We squanderers of | I |
gazing beyond them to judge the end of their duration | A |
They are only our winter's foliage our sombre evergreen | J |
one of the seasons of our interior year not only season | A |
but place settlement camp soil and dwelling | D |
- | |
How woeful strange are the alleys of the City of Pain | K |
where in the false silence created from too much noise | L |
a thing cast out from the mold of emptiness | M |
swaggers that gilded hubbub the bursting memorial | N |
Oh how completely an angel would stamp out their market | G |
of solace bounded by the church bought ready for use | O |
as clean disappointing and closed as a post office on Sunday | G |
Farther out though there are always the rippling edges | P |
of the fair Seasaws of freedom High divers and jugglers of zeal | Q |
And the shooting gallery's targets of bedizened happiness | M |
targets tumbling in tinny contortions whenever some better | R |
marksman happens to hit one From cheers to chance he goes | S |
staggering on as booths that can please the most curious tastes | T |
are drumming and bawling For adults ony there is something | D |
special to see how money multiplies Anatomy made amusing | D |
Money's organs on view Nothing concealed Instructive | U |
and guaranteed to increase fertility | H |
- | |
Oh and then outside | G |
behind the farthest billboard pasted with posters for 'Deathless ' | - |
that bitter beer tasting quite sweet to drinkers | V |
if they chew fresh diversions with it | G |
Behind the billboard just in back of it life is real | Q |
Children play and lovers hold each other aside | G |
earnestly in the trampled grass and dogs respond to nature | R |
The youth continues onward perhaps he is in love with | W |
a young Lament he follows her into the meadows | S |
She says the way is long We live out there | X |
Where And the youth | Y |
follows He is touched by her gentle bearing The shoulders | V |
the neck perhaps she is of noble ancestry | H |
Yet he leaves her turns around looks back and waves | Z |
What could come of it She is a Lament | G |
- | |
Only those who died young in their first state of | I |
timeless serenity while they are being weaned | G |
follow her lovingly She waits for girls | A2 |
and befriends them Gently she shows them | B2 |
what she is wearing Pearls of grief | C2 |
and the fine spun veils of patience | D2 |
With youths she walks in silence | D2 |
- | |
But there where they live in the valley | H |
an elderly Lament responds to the youth as he asks | E2 |
We were once she says a great race we Laments | F2 |
Our fathers worked the mines up there in the mountains | G2 |
sometimes among men you will find a piece of polished | G |
primeval pain or a petrified slag from an ancient volcano | H2 |
Yes that came from there Once we were rich | I2 |
- | |
And she leads him gently through the vast landscape | J2 |
of Lamentation shows him the columns of temples | B |
the ruins of strongholds from which long ago | H2 |
the princes of Lament wisely governed the country | H |
Shows him the tall trees of tears | K2 |
the fields of flowering sadness | M |
the living know them only as softest foliage | L2 |
show him the beasts of mourning grazing | D |
and sometimes a startled bird flying straight through | M2 |
their field of vision far away traces the image of its | N2 |
solitary cry | O2 |
At evening she leads him to the graves of elders | V |
of the race of Lamentation the sybils and prophets | P2 |
With night approaching they move more softly | H |
and soon there looms ahead bathed in moonlight | G |
the sepulcher that all guarding ancient stone | Q2 |
Twin brother to that on the Nile the lofty Sphinx | R2 |
the silent chamber's countenance | D2 |
They marvel at the regal head that has forever silent | G |
laid the features of manking upon the scales of the stars | S2 |
His sight still blinded by his early death | T2 |
cannot grasp it But the Sphinx's gaze | U2 |
frightens an owl from the rim of the double crown | V2 |
The bird with slow down strokes brushes | W2 |
along the cheek that with the roundest curve | X2 |
and faintly inscribes on the new death born hearing | D |
as though on the double page of an opened book | Y2 |
the indescribable outline | Z2 |
- | |
And higher up the stars New ones Stars | S2 |
of the land of pain Slowly she names them | B2 |
There look the Rider the Staff and that | G |
crowded constellation they call the the Garland of Fruit | G |
Then farther up toward the Pole | A3 |
Cradle Way the Burning Book Doll Window | H2 |
And in the Southern sky pure as lines | B3 |
on the palm of a blessed hand the clear sparkling M | B2 |
standing for Mothers | V |
- | |
Yet the dead youth must go on alone | Q2 |
In silence the elder Lament brings him | C3 |
as far as the gorge where it shimmers in the moonlight | G |
The Foutainhead of Joy With reverance she names it | G |
saying In the world of mankind it is a life bearing stream | D3 |
- | |
They reach the foothills of the mountain | A |
and there she embraces him weeping | D |
- | |
Alone he climbs the mountains of primeval pain | K |
Not even his footsteps ring from this soundless fate | G |
- | |
But were these timeless dead to awaken an image for us | M |
see they might be pointing to th catkins hanging | D |
from the leafless hazels or else they might mean | J |
the rain that falls upon the dark earth in early Spring | D |
- | |
And we who always think | E3 |
of happiness as rising feel the emotion | A |
that almost overwhelms us | M |
whenever a happy thing falls | F3 |
Rainer Maria Rilke
(1)
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