Songs to Seraphine III
Behold! 'tis a foam-white sea-mewThat flutters there on high.Far over the black night-watersThe moon hangs up in the sky.
The shark and the roach dart forwardFor breath as the breeze floats by.The sea-mew poises and plunges,The moon hangs up in the sky.
Oh, lovely transient spirit,How heavy of heart am I!Too near to thee is the water,The moon hangs up in the sky.
Words in this poem
- roach v. t.
- To cause to arch.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Songs to Seraphine III 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, Songs to Seraphine III, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/songs-to-seraphine-iii.html, id L15418.
Form and metre
Songs to Seraphine III is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 mew · highA · waters · skyA
- 2 -A-A forward · byA · plunges · skyA
- 3 -A-A spirit · iA · water · skyA
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 iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Behold! 'tis a foam-white sea-mew | 8 | ˘/······ |
| That flutters there on high. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Far over the black night-waters | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The moon hangs up in the sky. | 7 | ······· |
| The shark and the roach dart forward | 8 | ······/˘ |
| For breath as the breeze floats by. | 7 | ······· |
| The sea-mew poises and plunges, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| The moon hangs up in the sky. | 7 | ······· |
| Oh, lovely transient spirit, | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| How heavy of heart am I! | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Too near to thee is the water, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The moon hangs up in the sky. | 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.