Poem Response 7

 Apollo

Archaic Torso of Apollo

by: Rainer Maria Rilke

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, 

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared. 

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: 

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

_________________________________________________

"You must change your life" is the single most stand out sentence in the entire poem. 

This is because it has nothing to do with the rest of the poem, but at the same time

 it has everything to do with it. 

It is completely separate in that it does not follow the 

rest of the poem, talking about the sculpture of Apollo's magnificence. Also, until this

line, the poem is including the reader in the sculptures magnificence as if the reader can

comprehend it, however the last line makes it seem as though the reader was never 

really included, because they need to change their life before they can fully the 

sculpture and have it affect them as the speaker suggests. 

The line has everything to do with the poem in that it suggests the reader must change
their lives to appreciate the subtle grandeur of the sculpture or maybe even life. If the 

line was not there the poem would seem to be missing something. Although the last line

may not be the kind of conclusion the reader was expecting it does sum up the poem 

and do a great job of convincing the reader to reread the poem. I reread it several times 

trying to understand. I now feel it is better to leave it as a mystery. 

I find the lines, "for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change 

your life" sound like a mention of an all-seeing, powerful God that will judge the reader. Or,

perhaps this is only meant to be understood as the idea that, because the statue does not 

have a head the entire object seems to look back at the viewer.   

The poem has beautiful imagery and seems very much like a gallery viewer's internal

monologue. Quite the mystery.