Analysis of What Survives
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.
It isn't the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor --from breast to knees--
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.
Translated by A. Poulin
Scheme | XXXXX XXXXX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110 110101 1011101 0011001 01001011 11001011 111010101 101111 0010111 11011101 0101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 327 |
Words | 63 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 1 |
Lines Amount | 11 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 85 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 20 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 24, 2023
- 19 sec read
- 361 Views
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"What Survives" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29750/what-survives>.
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