Song
There stands a lonely pine-treeIn the north, on a barren height;He sleeps while the ice and snow flakesSwathe him in folds of white.
He dreameth of a palm-treeFar in the sunrise-land,Lonely and silent longingOn her burning bank of sand.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, the Emma Lazarus translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Heinrich Heine, Song, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/song-2.html, id L15446.
Form and metre
Song is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 tree · heightA · flakes · whiteA
- 2 -A-A tree · landA · longing · sandA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There stands a lonely pine-tree | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| In the north, on a barren height; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| He sleeps while the ice and snow flakes | 8 | ········ |
| Swathe him in folds of white. | 6 | ······ |
| He dreameth of a palm-tree | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Far in the sunrise-land, | 6 | ···/·· |
| Lonely and silent longing | 7 | /˘·/˘/˘ |
| On her burning bank of sand. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.