Analysis of The Apple Orchard

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



Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.


Scheme XXXXXXXXXXAXXBXXB XXXA
Poetic Form
Metre 11110111 01011011 1111111111 0101010011 11001101001 11010010101 1011010101 11100110101 10001110101 010110110 1110010101 110010111 10101010111 1011110 1010101010 111111100 1110111110 1111110011 0101011 0101111101 0100110111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 857
Words 144
Sentences 8
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 17, 4
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 33
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 351
Words per stanza (avg) 71
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

43 sec read
292

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…

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