Songs to Seraphine VIII
Come, let us build upon this rock,The Church of God's last lover,The third New Testament's revealed,The agony is over.
Refuted is the second bookThat fooled us through long ages.The stupid torture of the fleshIs not for modern sages.
Hear'st thou the Lord in the dark sea,With thousand voices speaking?See'st thou o'erhead the thousand lightsOf God's own glory breaking?
The holy God dwells in the light,As in the dark abysses.For God is everything that is:His breath is in our kisses.
About this text
Songs to Seraphine VIII 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 VIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/songs-to-seraphine-viii.html, id L15423.
Form and metre
Songs to Seraphine VIII is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% 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.
- 2 -A-A book · agesA · flesh · sagesA
- 4 -AAA light · abyssesA · isA · kissesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come, let us build upon this rock, | 8 | ········ |
| The Church of God's last lover, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The third New Testament's revealed, | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| The agony is over. | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| Refuted is the second book | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| That fooled us through long ages. | 8 | ··˘···/˘ |
| The stupid torture of the flesh | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Is not for modern sages. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Hear'st thou the Lord in the dark sea, | 8 | ········ |
| With thousand voices speaking? | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| See'st thou o'erhead the thousand lights | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of God's own glory breaking? | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| The holy God dwells in the light, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As in the dark abysses. | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| For God is everything that is: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| His breath is in our kisses. | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
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.