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 or Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, was extremely popular and appeared in eighteen editions from 1670 to 1886. It is another example of the Sapphic stanza serving an epic function in Old Polish literature. The Sapphic stanza was also used in Poland during Enlightenment. Poets of the time preferred the Polish alexandrine (7+6) to the hendecasyllable (5+6), but used the latter metre in Italian forms, such as sesta rima and ottava rima, as well as in Sappho's stanza. Sapphic stanzas can be found in Adam Naruszewicz's poetry. He used the form among others in the poem "Pieśń doroczna na dzień ocalenia