Thou Anxious One
Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hearAgainst thee all my surging senses sing?About thy face in circles drawing nearMy thought floats like a fluttering white wing.
Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soulIn silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray?But when thy glance rests on me then my wholeBeing quickens and blooms like trees in May.
When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream,But when thou art awake I am thy WillPotent with splendour, radiant and sublime,Expanding like far space star-lit and stillInto the distant mystic realm of Time.
Words in this poem
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thou Anxious One 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, Thou Anxious One, in Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38594, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rilke-poems-lemont/thou-anxious-one.html, id L27765.
Form and metre
Thou Anxious One is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 hearA · singB · nearA · wingB
- 2 ABAB soulA · prayB · wholeA · mayB
- 3 -ABAB dream · willA · sublimeB · stillA · timeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou Anxious One! And dost thou then not hear | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Against thee all my surging senses sing? | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| About thy face in circles drawing near | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| My thought floats like a fluttering white wing. | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Dost thou not see, before thee stands my soul | 10 | ·········· |
| In silence wrapt my Springtime's prayer to pray? | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| But when thy glance rests on me then my whole | 10 | ·········· |
| Being quickens and blooms like trees in May. | 10 | /˘/˘······ |
| When thou art dreaming then I am thy Dream, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But when thou art awake I am thy Will | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Potent with splendour, radiant and sublime, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Expanding like far space star-lit and still | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| Into the distant mystic realm of Time. | 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.