The Angels
They all have tired mouthsAnd luminous, illimitable souls;And a longing (as if for sin)Trembles at times through their dreams.
They all resemble one another,In God's garden they are silentLike many, many intervalsIn His mighty melody.
But when they spread their wingsThey awaken the windsThat stir as though GodWith His far-reaching master handsTurned the pages of the dark book of Beginning.
About this text
The Angels 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, The Angels, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/the-angels.html, id L27727.
Form and metre
The Angels is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They all have tired mouths | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And luminous, illimitable souls; | 10 | ·/˘˘˘/˘˘˘· |
| And a longing (as if for sin) | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Trembles at times through their dreams. | 7 | /˘····· |
| They all resemble one another, | 9 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| In God's garden they are silent | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Like many, many intervals | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| In His mighty melody. | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| But when they spread their wings | 6 | ······ |
| They awaken the winds | 6 | ·˘/˘·· |
| That stir as though God | 5 | ····· |
| With His far-reaching master hands | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Turned the pages of the dark book of Beginning. | 12 | ··/˘·····˘/˘ |
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.