The Tomb Of A Young Girl - Analysis

Introduction and overall impression

The poem evokes a mournful, reverent tone that mixes memory and sensuality. It recalls a past encounter with a combination of tenderness and tragic distance, moving between remembrance and a kind of ritualized lament. The mood shifts subtly from a communal recollection ("We still remember!") to an intimate portrait of the young girl and the figure who touched her life.

Relevant context and authorial background

Rainer Maria Rilke, an Austro-Bohemian poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often explores inner experience, mortality, and the spiritual resonance of physical life. Although the specific historical circumstances of this short poem are not given, Rilke's broader preoccupation with transformation, eros, and the mingling of life and death informs its sensibility.

Main themes: memory, eros, and loss

Memory: The opening line "We still remember!" frames the poem as communal recollection; repetition "The same as of yore / All that has happened once again must be" suggests ritualized return to a past event. Eros: Sensual images—"your light, small breasts you bore" and the lover who "cast a shadow over your young limb"—make erotic experience central. Loss and mortality: Words like "tomb" in the title and the elegiac voice imply absence and possibly death or the end of innocence, so the erotic memory is always shadowed by loss.

Imagery and symbolic figures

The poem uses vivid, often paradoxical images. The lemon-tree "upon the shore" evokes growth in an exposed, marginal place—beauty that is also saline and precarious—mirroring the girl's youth and vulnerability. The lover is portrayed mythically: "That god— / who was the wanderer, the slim / Despoiler of fair women" blends divine and predatory aspects, suggesting both attraction and violation. Blood "coursed like the wild sea" links bodily interiority to vast, uncontrollable nature, amplifying both passion and danger.

Tone shifts and ambiguous perspective

The collective "We" sets an external, commemorative stance, while the poem slides into intimate descriptions, creating tension between public remembrance and private sensation. The ambiguous moral stance toward the "god"—called wise yet a despoiler—invites questions about culpability, consent, and the poet's simultaneous awe and critique of powerful erotic forces.

Conclusion and final insight

The poem compresses remembrance, sensuality, and elegy into a brief tableau where youthful beauty and a consuming lover meet in a ritual of recall. Through emblematic images—the lemon-tree, the wild sea of blood, the wandering god—Rilke meditates on how erotic encounter becomes part of communal memory and how desire is inseparable from loss.