quote · Legacy record
The SolitaryAs one who has sailed across an unknown sea,among this rooted folk I am alone;the full days on their tables are their own,to me the distant is reality.A new world reaches to my very eyes,a place perhaps unpeopled as the moon;their slightest feelings they must analyze,and all their words have got the common tune.The things I brought with me from far away,compared with theirs, look strangely not the same:in their great country they were living things,but here they hold their breath, as if for shame.
The SolitaryAs one who has sailed across an unknown sea,among this rooted folk I am alone;the full days on their tables are their own,to me the distant is reality.A new world reaches to my very eyes,a place perhaps unpeopled as the moon;their slightest feelings they must analyze,and all their words have got the common tune.The things I brought with me from far away,compared with theirs, look strangely not the same:in their great country they were living things,but here they hold their breath, as if for shame.
Approximate author period: c. 1900 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1900 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1875 to 1926; Wikidata Q76483, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76483 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 207588; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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