Kings in Legends
Kings in old legends seemLike mountains rising in the evening light.They blind all with their gleam,Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,Their robes are edged with bandsOf precious stones--the rarest earth affords--With richly jeweled handsThey hold their slender, shining, naked swords.
About this text
Kings in Legends 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, Kings in Legends, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/kings-in-legends.html, id L27729.
Form and metre
Kings in Legends is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
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 ABABCDCD seemA · lightB · gleamA · brightB · bandsC · affordsD · handsC · swordsD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Kings in old legends seem | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Like mountains rising in the evening light. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| They blind all with their gleam, | 6 | ······ |
| Their loins encircled are by girdles bright, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Their robes are edged with bands | 6 | ······ |
| Of precious stones--the rarest earth affords-- | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| With richly jeweled hands | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| They hold their slender, shining, naked swords. | 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.