Autumn
The leaves fall, fall as from far,Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;They fall with slow and lingering descent.
And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, fallsFrom out the stars into the Solitude.
Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fallAnd lo! the other one:--it is the law.But there is One who holds this fallingInfinitely softly in His hands.
About this text
Autumn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, translated by Jessie Lemont, with an introduction by H.T. (New York: Tobias A. Wright, 1918), Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, the Jessie Lemont translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rainer Maria Rilke, Autumn, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/autumn.html, id L27725.
Form and metre
Autumn is 9 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The leaves fall, fall as from far, | 7 | ······· |
| Like distant gardens withered in the heavens; | 11 | ·/˘/˘/˘··/˘ |
| They fall with slow and lingering descent. | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| From out the stars into the Solitude. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall | 10 | ·········· |
| And lo! the other one:--it is the law. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But there is One who holds this falling | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Infinitely softly in His hands. | 9 | /˘˘˘/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.