I Live my Life in Circles
I live my life in circles that grow wideAnd endlessly unroll,I may not reach the last, but on I glideStrong pinioned toward my goal.
About the old tower, dark against the sky,The beat of my wings hums,I circle about God, sweep far and highOn through milleniums.
Am I a bird that skims the clouds along,Or am I a wild storm, or a great song?
Words in this poem
- endlessly adv.
- In an endless manner.
- unroll v. t.
- To open, as what is rolled or convolved; as, to unroll cloth; to unroll a banner. [1st pref. un- + roll.]
- pinioned a.
- Having wings or pinions.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I Live my Life in Circles 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, I Live my Life in Circles, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/i-live-my-life-in-circles.html, id L27762.
Form and metre
I Live my Life in Circles is 10 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB wideA · unrollB · glideA · goalB
- 2 ABAB skyA · humsB · highA · milleniumsB
- 3 AA alongA · songA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I live my life in circles that grow wide | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And endlessly unroll, | 6 | ·/˘˘˘/ |
| I may not reach the last, but on I glide | 10 | ·········· |
| Strong pinioned toward my goal. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| About the old tower, dark against the sky, | 10 | ····/····· |
| The beat of my wings hums, | 6 | ······ |
| I circle about God, sweep far and high | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| On through milleniums. | 5 | ····· |
| Am I a bird that skims the clouds along, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Or am I a wild storm, or a great song? | 10 | ·········· |
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.