[1] Wandelt sich auch die Welt: As in the previous sonnet with the 13th verse "Hat sie aus uns auch Kraft. . . " when the sentence begins with a verb and there is no question mark, and no command is being given, then normally we will encounter a subordinate clause with the understood conjunction "wenn." Written normally, it would be "Wenn [auch] die Welt sich rasch wandelt,. . ." The sonnet is again in the dactylic meter with the short verses 4, 6, 8, 12 and 14 being adonic lines. Dactyl: A metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by two short ones. Adoneus is: "ein aus der Antike stammender Versfuß aus fünf Glieders mit der Form -UU-U."

[2] wie Wolkengestalten: Alliteration of "w" along with the more distant usage thereof in the first verse with "Wandelt" and "Welt." Alliteration: The repetition of the sound of an initial consonant or consonant cluster in stressed syllables close enough to each other for the ear to be affected.

[3] alles Vollendete: Another "Substantivierung des Adjectives" whereby an noun is created by capitalizing an adjective and placing it into the neuter case.

[4] weiter und freier: Assonance of the "ei" sound. Assonance: Resemblance of sound, especially of the vowel sounds in words. Here it is of the diphthong.

[5] währt: As in the first quartett, another example of a rather distant alliteration with the words "Wandel" in the 5th verse and "weiter" in the 6th verse.

[6] Vor-Gesang: The Bindestrich is normally not present in combining words using "vor" and "nach" such as "Vormittag" and "Nachmittag" or "Nachgeschmack." Rilke is thereby showing that Orpheus' song was the origin of such songs and not just a song recital given in front of an audience.

[7] Nicht sind die Leiden erkannt,/nicht ist die Liebe gelernt: Two sentences, each beginning with the same word "nicht" create a mini Anaphora. In addition, both sentences beginning with "nicht" followed by a verb and a predicate noun also form a parallelism. Also note the distant alliteration with "Leier" in the preceeding verse, with "Liebe" in the next verse and with "Lied" in the penultimate verse. Anaphora: The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs. Parallelism: The repetition of identical or similar syntactic patterns in adjacent phrases, clauses or sentences.

[8] und was im Tod uns entfernt: A subordinate clause which is used as the subject of the sentence. In German this is an example of a Subjektsatz. Such clauses used as subjects are separated by a comma from the verb as in this example. Subjektsatz: Ein Subjekt in Gestalt eines abhängigen Satzes, d.h. eines Gliedsatzes.

[9] ist nicht entschleiert: The continuation of the sentence which began with the Subjektsatz "was im Tod uns entfernt." Also an example of a double negation, since the prefix "ent-" defined in Brockhaus as "andere Zeitwörter ins Gegenteil verkehrend" is preceeded by "nicht." Note also that this verse and the preceeding end with a verb beginning with the "ent" prefix.

[10] einzig: This word modifies "das Lied," however, it has a double meaning. First it functions as "nur" or "only" which is the third definition in Brockhaus. The second definition as "vortrefflich, köstlich, seltsam" is also implied.

[11] Lied überm Land: A Synaloepha of "über" plus "dem" in order to continue the prevailing dactylic meter. Also an alliteration of the "L" sound. Note that this contraction also strengthens the alliteration effect. Note that, as usual, Rilke does not use an apostrophe for a contraction. Synaloepha: Omission of a vowel to contract two words into one such as "don't," "it's." Alliteration: The repetition of the sound of an initial consonant or consonant cluster in stressed syllables close enough to each other for the ear to be affected. Dactyl: A metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by two short ones.

[12] heiligt und feiert: As in verse 6 with "weiter und freier" there is an assonance with the same "ei" sound which also creates a distant "parallelism," strengthened by the fact that "freier" and "feiert" have almost the same letters. Both verses are also adonic lines Assonance: Resemblance of sound, especially of the vowel sounds in words. Parallelism: The repetition of identical or similar syntactic patterns in adjacent phrases, clauses or sentences. Adoneus or Adonic Line: " According to the German Wictionary, the Adoneus is: "ein aus der Antike stammender Versfuß aus fünf Glieders mit der Form -UU-U."