Remembrance
Expectant and waiting you museOn the great rare thing which aloneTo enhance your life you would choose:The awakening of the stone,The deeps where yourself you would lose.
In the dusk of the shelves, embossedShine the volumes in gold and browns,And you think of countries once crossed,Of pictures, of shimmering gownsOf the women that you have lost.
And it comes to you then at last--And you rise for you are awareOf a year in the far off pastWith its wonder and fear and prayer.
Words in this poem
- enhance v. t.
- To raise or lift up; to exalt. Wyclif. [Norm. F. enhauncer, enhaucer, OF. enhaleier, enhaucier; pref. en- (L. in) + haucier to lift, raise up, from an assumed L. altiare, fr. L. altus high; cf. Pr. en]
- shimmering n.
- A gleam or glimmering.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Remembrance 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, Remembrance, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/remembrance.html, id L27744.
Form and metre
Remembrance is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABABA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 ABABA museA · aloneB · chooseA · stoneB · loseA
- 2 ABABA embossedA · brownsB · crossedA · gownsB · lostA
- 3 ABAB lastA · awareB · pastA · prayerB
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Expectant and waiting you muse | 8 | ˘/˘·/˘·· |
| On the great rare thing which alone | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To enhance your life you would choose: | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| The awakening of the stone, | 8 | ·˘/˘˘··· |
| The deeps where yourself you would lose. | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| In the dusk of the shelves, embossed | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Shine the volumes in gold and browns, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And you think of countries once crossed, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Of pictures, of shimmering gowns | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘· |
| Of the women that you have lost. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And it comes to you then at last-- | 8 | ········ |
| And you rise for you are aware | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Of a year in the far off past | 8 | ········ |
| With its wonder and fear and prayer. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
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.