The Panther
His weary glance, from passing by the bars,Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;It seems to him there are a thousand barsAnd out beyond those bars the empty air.
The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless soundOf supple tread behind the iron bands,Is like a dance of strength circling around,While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.
But there are times the pupils of his eyesDilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,Tense with the flood of visions that ariseOnly to sink and die within his heart.
Words in this poem
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Panther 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 Panther, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/the-panther.html, id L27756.
Form and metre
The Panther is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 barsA · stareB · barsA · airB
- 2 ABAB soundA · bandsB · aroundA · standsB
- 3 ABAB eyesA · apartB · ariseA · heartB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| His weary glance, from passing by the bars, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| It seems to him there are a thousand bars | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And out beyond those bars the empty air. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of supple tread behind the iron bands, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Is like a dance of strength circling around, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But there are times the pupils of his eyes | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart, | 10 | ˘/····˘/˘/ |
| Tense with the flood of visions that arise | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Only to sink and die within his heart. | 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.