The Swan
The Swan - meaning Summary
Grace Through Letting Go
Rilke compares human effort and the awkwardness of life to a swan's ungraceful walking, then equates dying or letting go with the bird’s release into water. The poem contrasts struggle and burden with a quiet, majestic surrender. In the final image the swan is received by the water and glides with indifferent dignity, suggesting that relinquishment transforms clumsiness into serene, transcendent poise.
Read Complete AnalysesThis laboring through what is still undone, as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way, is like the akward walking of the swan. And dying-to let go, no longer feel the solid ground we stand on every day- is like anxious letting himself fall into waters, which receive him gently and which, as though with reverence and joy, draw back past him in streams on either side; while, infinitely silent and aware, in his full majesty and ever more indifferent, he condescends to glide.
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