Fear Of The Inexplicable Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHI JKLCMDGNOPQ RNSCLLTUNLNVWXTYZNN| xistence of the individual the relationship between | A |
| one human being and another has also been cramped by it | B |
| as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of | C |
| endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the | D |
| bank to which nothing happens For it is not inertia alone | E |
| that is responsible for human relationships repeating | F |
| themselves from case to case indescribably monotonous and | G |
| unrenewed it is shyness before any sort of new unforeseeable | H |
| experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope | I |
| - | |
| But only someone who is ready for everything who excludes | J |
| nothing not even the most enigmatical will live the relation | K |
| to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively | L |
| from his own existence For if we think of this existence of | C |
| the individual as a larger or smaller room it appears evident | M |
| that most people learn to know only a corner of their room a | D |
| place by the window a strip of floor on which they walk up and | G |
| down Thus they have a certain security And yet that dangerous | N |
| insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in | O |
| Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons | P |
| and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode | Q |
| - | |
| We however are not prisoners No traps or snares are set about | R |
| us and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us | N |
| We are set down in life as in the element to which we best | S |
| correspond and over and above this we have through thousands of | C |
| years of accommodation become so like this life that when we | L |
| hold still we are through a happy mimicry scarcely to be | L |
| distinguished from all that surrounds us We have no reason to | T |
| mistrust our world for it is not against us Has it terrors | U |
| they are our terrors has it abysses those abuses belong to us | N |
| are dangers at hand we must try to love them And if only we | L |
| arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us | N |
| that we must always hold to the difficult then that which now | V |
| still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust | W |
| and find most faithful How should we be able to forget those | X |
| ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into | T |
| princesses perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses | Y |
| who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave Perhaps | Z |
| everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless | N |
| that wants help from us | N |
Rainer Maria Rilke
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Fear Of The Inexplicable poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
Best Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke