Remembrance
Remembrance - meaning Summary
Longing for Inner Transformation
Rilke's "Remembrance" depicts a speaker who sits among books and memories, yearning for a single miraculous change: the "awakening of the stone." The poem links longing, loss, and nostalgia—images of travel, vanished lovers, and catalogued volumes—to a desire for inner transformation and escape into the depths of the self. In the final stanza the remembered past reemerges, prompting awareness and a physical response as memory and longing converge.
Read Complete AnalysesExpectant and waiting you muse On the great rare thing which alone To enhance your life you would choose: The awakening of the stone, The deeps where yourself you would lose. In the dusk of the shelves, embossed Shine the volumes in gold and browns, And you think of countries once crossed, Of pictures, of shimmering gowns Of the women that you have lost. And it comes to you then at last— And you rise for you are aware Of a year in the far off past With its wonder and fear and prayer.
Translated by Jessie Lamont
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