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 scheme freely, as in the poem "Buntowniki" ("Rioters"). The second half of the 19th century in Polish literature was dominated by "pozytywizm" (positivism), which was the local Polish version of West-European realism. The two greatest poets of the time were Adam Asnyk and Maria Konopnicka. Their poetry was much influenced by French Parnassianism. Maria Konopnicka published more than twenty poems written in the form. She also used its scheme for constructing more complicated stanzas. Felicjan Faleński attempted a Polish Sapphic stanza more closely resembling the Greek and Latin models, and in translating Horace’s poetry used a hendecasyllable with the caesura