Forbidden Fruit II
Heaven is what I cannot reach!The apple on the tree,Provided it do hopeless hang,That 'heaven' is, to me.
The color on the cruising cloud,The interdicted groundBehind the hill, the house behind, --There Paradise is found!
About this text
Forbidden Fruit II is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Forbidden Fruit II, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/forbidden-fruit-ii.html, id L03736.
Form and metre
Forbidden Fruit II is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A reach · treeA · hang · meA
- 2 -A-A cloud · groundA · behind · foundA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Heaven is what I cannot reach! | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| The apple on the tree, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Provided it do hopeless hang, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| That 'heaven' is, to me. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The color on the cruising cloud, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The interdicted ground | 6 | ·/˘·˘· |
| Behind the hill, the house behind, -- | 8 | ········ |
| There Paradise is found! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.