Songs to Seraphine XIII
I told nor man, nor womanHow ill you dealt with me;I came abroad and published itTo the fishes in the sea.
Only upon terra firmaI have left you your good name;But over all the oceanEvery creature knows your shame.
About this text
Songs to Seraphine XIII 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 XIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/songs-to-seraphine-xiii.html, id L15428.
Form and metre
Songs to Seraphine XIII is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 woman · meA · it · seaA
- 2 -A-A firma · nameA · ocean · shameA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I told nor man, nor woman | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| How ill you dealt with me; | 6 | ······ |
| I came abroad and published it | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| To the fishes in the sea. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Only upon terra firma | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| I have left you your good name; | 7 | ······· |
| But over all the ocean | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Every creature knows your shame. | 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.