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 from the book "Kanikuła, albo psia gwiazda" ("Canicula or dog star"). Zbigniew Morsztyn shaped his Sapphic stanzas so as to make a long chain of linked strophes, exhibiting many enjambments from one to the next stanza. He is the author of the poem "Sławna wiktoryja nad Turkami" ("The Famous Victory over the Turks"), which is an example of the use of the Sapphic stanza in an epic function. Large parts of Klemens Bolesławiusz's "Przeraźliwe echo trąby ostatecznej" ("The Horrifying Echo of Doomsday Trumpet") are composed in Sapphic stanzas. This work, which can be compared to "The Revelation of St. John"