Lost in Translation (poem) the key clue here. The four lines come from that "lost" German translation by Rilke of Valéry's "Palme". (Merrill's own English translation of "Palme" is the source of the translated quatrain above. See Merrill's "Paul Valéry: "Palme"" in "Late Settings", 1985.) The original in French: from Paul Valéry, Charmes (1922) Palme classical dizain 7th Stanza The solution to the puzzle of the poem is hidden in plain sight all along. "Nothing's lost", Merrill suggests, when it comes to translating experience or memory, at least according to the way Merrill understands our human experience. The poem's coda salutes the power of
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry longer lines (iambic tetrameters) and two shorter (iambic dimeters): <poem style="margin-left:2em"> But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! </poem> Maria Konopnicka used Słowacki's stanza in her well-known poem with the Latin title "Contra spem spero", and in the poems "Do ziemi" ("To the soil") and in "Zima do poety" ("Winter to the poet"). In another poem, "Jej pamięci" ("To her memory"), she employed a very similar strophe, also 11/11/11/5/11/5, but rhymed AABBCC. In