Rainer Maria Rilke's most famous poems
The top 3 according to 0 votes from people: The Panther · Autumn Day · Love Song. (Updated Aug 21, 2025.)
Rilke's best-known poems, found in school books, anthologies and birthday cards, from The Panther to the Duino Elegies.
Automatically translated (original in Deutsch). See the original
Top 15
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1
The Panther
1902. The most famous "thing poem", written at the Jardin des Plantes.
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2
Autumn Day
1902. The great summer ends and autumn begins.
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3
Love Song
One of the most beautiful love poems in German.
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4
Archaic Torso of Apollo
1908. It ends by telling you to change your life.
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5
You Don't Have to Understand Life
1898. The birthday-card poem.
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6
The Carousel
1906. Children in the Luxembourg Gardens and a white elephant.
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7
Autumn (The leaves are falling)
Falling leaves and a hand that holds everything.
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8
I Live My Life in Widening Circles
From The Book of Hours.
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9
Duino Elegies (First Elegy)
Begun in 1912 at Duino, finished in 1922.
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10
Sonnets to Orpheus
1922. Written in a few days.
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11
Roman Fountain
A fountain in the Villa Borghese as a "thing poem".
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12
Solemn Hour
Whoever weeps somewhere in the world right now…
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13
Blue Hydrangea
The colours of a fading flower.
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14
Childhood
Memories of school and long afternoons.
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15
The Man Watching
How small the things we struggle with.
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