Analysis of Lady On A Balcony

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



Suddenly she steps, wrapped into the wind,
brightly into brightness, as if singled out,
while now the room as though cut to fit
behind her fills the door

darkly like the ground of cameo,
that lets a glimmer through at the edges;
and you think the evening wasn't there
before she stepped out, and on the railing

set forth just a little of herself,
just her hands, --to be completely light:
as if passed on by the rows of houses
to the heavens, to be swayed by everything.

Translated by Edward Snow


Scheme XXXX ABXC XXBC A
Poetic Form
Metre 1001110101 10011011101 110111111 010101 10101110 1101011010 011010101 0111101010 111010101 101110101 1111101110 1010111110 0101101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 492
Words 94
Sentences 2
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 1
Lines Amount 13
Letters per line (avg) 30
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 98
Words per stanza (avg) 23
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

28 sec read
141

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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