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
Metre (poetry) metrical patterns are made of long and short syllables, much as in Classical Greek, Latin and Arabic. "Anceps" positions in the line, however, that is places where either a long or short syllable can be used (marked "x" in the schemes below), are not found in Persian verse except in some metres at the beginning of a line. Persian poetry is written in couplets, with each half-line (hemistich) being 10-14 syllables long. Except in the ruba'i (quatrain), where either of two very similar metres may be used, the same metre is used for every line in the poem. Rhyme is