The poem consists of three rhyming quatrains, as in the original German. (A quatrain consists of four lines of verse.) Gioia the translator has attempted the difficult task of remaining true to the rhyme scheme of the original poem without straying from the meaning of the words. In the first two quatrains, Line 1 rhymes with Line 3 (“tonight” and “sight”), and Line 2 rhymes with Line 4; then Line 5 rhymes with Line 7 and Line 6 with Line 8. The final quatrain has a different rhyme scheme. Line 9 rhymes with Line 12, and Line 9 with Line 10. The rhyme scheme can thus be presented in its entirety as abab cdcd effe.

Unlike Rilke’s original, which consists entirely of perfect rhymes, the English translation contains two partial or near-rhymes: “secure” (Line 2) and “you are” (Line 4); and “mouth” (Line 10) and “truth” (Line 11), in which the vowel sound is different but the final consonants are the same.

The meter is predominantly iambic pentameter. (An iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, and a pentameter consists of five poetic feet.