Songs to Seraphine VII
Shy as a fawn she passed me by;And, fleet as any heifer,She clambered on from cliff to cliff,Her hair flew with the zephyr.
Where to the sea's edge slope the rocks,I reached her, trembling near it.Then, softly with the softest words,I melted her proud spirit.
There we two sat as high as heaven,And heaven's own rapture drinking.While in the dark waves far below;The gradual sun was sinking.
Below us in the deep, dark sea,The fair sun dropped; then dashing,The waves broke wildly over him,With turbulence of passion.
Oh do not weep! he is not dead,'Neath billows swelling higher;He has but hidden in my heart,With all his burning fire.
Words in this poem
- zephyr n.
- The west wind; poetically, any soft, gentle breeze. [L. zephyrus, Gr. zéphyr.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Songs to Seraphine VII 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 VII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/songs-to-seraphine-vii.html, id L15422.
Form and metre
Songs to Seraphine VII is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 10 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 by · heiferA · cliff · zephyrA
- 2 -A-A rocks · itA · words · spiritA
- 3 -A-A heaven · drinkingA · below · sinkingA
- 5 -A-A dead · higherA · heart · fireA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Shy as a fawn she passed me by; | 8 | ········ |
| And, fleet as any heifer, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| She clambered on from cliff to cliff, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her hair flew with the zephyr. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Where to the sea's edge slope the rocks, | 8 | ········ |
| I reached her, trembling near it. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Then, softly with the softest words, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I melted her proud spirit. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| There we two sat as high as heaven, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And heaven's own rapture drinking. | 8 | ·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| While in the dark waves far below; | 8 | ········ |
| The gradual sun was sinking. | 8 | ·/˘˘··/˘ |
| Below us in the deep, dark sea, | 8 | ········ |
| The fair sun dropped; then dashing, | 8 | ····˘·/˘ |
| The waves broke wildly over him, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| With turbulence of passion. | 7 | ·/˘˘·/˘ |
| Oh do not weep! he is not dead, | 8 | ········ |
| 'Neath billows swelling higher; | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| He has but hidden in my heart, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| With all his burning fire. | 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.