The Woman Who Loves
Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glideAnd lose myself--for to you I belong.The hope that hitherto I have deniedImperious comes to me as from your sideSerious, unfaltering and swift and strong.
Those times: the times when I was quite aloneBy memories wrapt that whispered to me low,My silence was the quiet of a stoneOver which rippling murmuring waters flow.
But in these weeks of the awakening SpringSomething within me has been freed--somethingThat in the past dark years unconscious lay,Which rises now within me and commandsAnd gives my poor warm life into your handsWho know not what I was that Yesterday.
Words in this poem
- hitherto adv.
- To this place; to a prescribed limit.
- imperious a.
- Commanding; ascendant; imperial; lordly; majestic. [L. imperiosus: cf. F. impérieux. See Imperial.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Woman Who Loves 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 Woman Who Loves, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/the-woman-who-loves.html, id L27748.
Form and metre
The Woman Who Loves is 15 lines in 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 ABAAB glideA · belongB · deniedA · sideA · strongB
- 2 ABAB aloneA · lowB · stoneA · flowB
- 3 AABCCB springA · somethingA · layB · commandsC · handsC · yesterdayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah yes! I long for you. To you I glide | 10 | ·········· |
| And lose myself--for to you I belong. | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| The hope that hitherto I have denied | 10 | ···/·/··˘/ |
| Imperious comes to me as from your side | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Serious, unfaltering and swift and strong. | 10 | /˘········ |
| Those times: the times when I was quite alone | 10 | ········˘/ |
| By memories wrapt that whispered to me low, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| My silence was the quiet of a stone | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Over which rippling murmuring waters flow. | 10 | ··/˘/˘˘/˘· |
| But in these weeks of the awakening Spring | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Something within me has been freed--something | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| That in the past dark years unconscious lay, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Which rises now within me and commands | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And gives my poor warm life into your hands | 10 | ·········· |
| Who know not what I was that Yesterday. | 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.