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 the lyric "Preludium" ("Prelude") she employed a seven-line stanza, built in much the same way: 11a/11b/11a/11a/5b/11c/5c. Once again she suggested Sappho's stanzaic pattern in the poem "Posłom wielkopolskim" ("To the deputies from the Greater Poland"), which goes 11a/11b/11a/5b/11c/11c; she repeated this scheme in "Improwizacja" ("Improvisation") and in "Ave, Patria". In the poem "Idź, idź w pokoju!" ("Go away in peace") Konopnicka used a six-line strophe 5a/11b/11b/11c/11c/5a. Another form used by Konopnicka suggestive of the Sapphic stanza is a quatrain composed of three hendecasyllabic lines and one trisyllable, used in "Kto krzywdę płodzi" ("Who begets harm"). More complicated is an eight-line