Have students turn to a partner or form small groups to engage in a collaborative discussion about the way rilke uses imagery and other poetic devices in the poem. this is the poem^^this clumsy living that moves lumberingas if in ropes through what is not done, reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks. and to die, which is the letting goof the ground we stand on and cling to every day, is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself downinto the water, which receives him gailyand which flows joyfully underand after him, wave after wave, while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm, is to be carried, each moment more fully grown, more like a king, further and further