The Death
The Death - fact Summary
Last Notebook Entry Before Death
This short poem, written in December 1926, addresses Death as an intimate, consuming presence. The speaker describes being transformed into flame, nourished by and surrendering to a violent inner fire that isolates memory and selfhood. The language stresses loss of future, estrangement from life, and the absence of anyone who knows him. Knowing it was Rilke’s final notebook entry, composed less than two weeks before his death, sharpens its elegiac tone.
Read Complete AnalysesCome thou, thou last one, whom I recognize, unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric: as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee: the wood that long resisted the advancing flames which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig and burn in thee. My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury has turned into a raging hell that is not from here. Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering, so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs, while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent. Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn? Memories I do not seize and bring inside. O life! O living! O to be outside! And I in flames. And no one here who knows me. [Written in December 1926, this poem was the last entry in Rilke's notebook, less than two weeks before his death at age 51.]
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