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
Line (poetry) Line (poetry) A line is a unit of language into which a poem or play is divided, which operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence or single clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is "verse", that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally. A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a "stanza". A title, in some poems, is considered a line. Conventions that determine what might constitute line in poetry depend upon different constraints, aural