German · New Poems

Liebeslied

Love Song

13 lines · 14 notes

Tap a line to open its words. The mark beside it plays it.

1
How shall I hold my soul, so that
WieHowwie · adverbdepends on soll
sollshallsollen · auxiliary verb, present, indicative, first-person, singularmain verb of the sentence
ichIich · pronoun, nominative, singulardepends on soll
meinemymein · determiner, accusative, feminine, singulardepends on Seele
SeelesoulSeele · noun, accusative, feminine, singulardepends on halten
haltenholdhalten · verb, infinitivedepends on soll
daßso thatdaß · subordinating conjunctiondepends on rührt (s1-l2)
GrammarA modal asking what one ought Wie soll ich...? uses the modal verb sollen, 'shall, am to', not a future tense. It asks what the speaker ought to do: 'how am I to hold my soul'.
GrammarOlder spelling of dass daß is the conjunction meaning 'so that, that', spelled with ß as German wrote it before the modern reform. Today it is written dass. The line ends on this conjunction, so the clause continues straight into the next line.
2
it does not touch against yours? How shall I lift it
WordThe verb touch against rühren an, with the dative, means 'to touch lightly against, to brush'. deine here stands for deine Seele, 'your soul'. The line asks whether the speaker's soul will brush against the beloved's simply by being near it.
3
up over you, to other things?
WordA lift directed away hinheben combines heben, 'to lift', with the particle hin-, marking motion away from here. It means to lift something up and carry it off, in this case the soul, toward andern Dingen, 'other things'.
4
Ah, I would gladly lodge it with some
GrammarA wish in the subjunctive möcht is the subjunctive form of mögen, the ordinary way to say 'I would like'. With gerne, 'gladly', it expresses a wish. The clause it opens continues for several lines before reaching its verb, unterbringen.
5
lost thing in the dark, tuck it away
GrammarAn adjective used as a noun Verlorenes is the past participle of verlieren, 'to lose', used here as a noun meaning 'a lost thing'. In the dative after bei it appears as Verlorenem. unterbringen, 'to lodge, to stow away', is the separable verb this whole clause has been building toward.
6
in some strange and silent place, that
WordStrange, belonging elsewhere fremd means 'strange, foreign, unfamiliar, belonging to someone else'. The soul is to be hidden in a place fremd to the beloved so it stays untouched by her. die at the end of the line is a relative pronoun pointing forward to that place.
7
does not vibrate on when your depths vibrate.
WordVibrate, and vibrate on schwingen means 'to swing, to oscillate, to vibrate', the motion of a string. weiterschwingen, 'to keep vibrating', names what the hidden place must not do when deine Tiefen schwingen, 'your depths vibrate'.
8
Yet everything that touches us, you and me,
GrammarThe turn marked by doch doch here means 'yet, but'. It marks a turn in the poem, away from the wish to keep the two souls apart. anrührt is the same separable verb as rührt … an earlier, now used plainly of everything that touches both speakers.
9
gathers us together like a stroke of the bow,
WordA single stroke of the bow der Bogenstrich joins Bogen, 'bow', and Strich, 'stroke', naming one pass of a violin bow across the strings. zusammennehmen means 'to gather together, to take as one'. The two people are drawn together the way a bow draws sound from strings.
10
that draws one voice out of two strings.
WordTwo strings, one voice die Saite means 'string' of an instrument, not to be confused with die Seite, 'page, side'. die Stimme means 'voice'. The bow zieht eine Stimme aus zwei Saiten, 'draws one voice out of two strings'.
11
Upon what instrument are we strung?
WordStretched taut like a string spannen means 'to stretch, to string an instrument, to put under tension'. gespannt sein auf can also mean 'to be in suspense about something'. Here it describes the lovers as strings stretched over an instrument neither of them can see.
12
And what player holds us in his hand?
GrammarThe idiom to hold in hand etwas in der Hand haben is an idiom meaning 'to have something in hand, to hold power over it'. der Spieler means 'the player', the one who plays the instrument. The dative in der Hand names a fixed position, not motion toward it.
13
O sweet song.
WordSweet song closes the poem süß means 'sweet' and das Lied means 'song'. The short exclamation closes the poem without answering the two questions before it, naming instead the sound the two strings make together.

The particulars

The text: Neue Gedichte, Rainer Maria Rilke. New Poems.
Reading aloud: Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
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