Songs to Seraphine XIV
The roaring waves press onwardTo reach the strand.Then swell, and, crashing downward,Break on the sand.
They roll with surging power,Nor rest, nor fail--And then ebb slow and slower--Of what avail?
Words in this poem
- crashing n.
- The noise of many things falling and breaking at once.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Songs to Seraphine XIV 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 XIV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/songs-to-seraphine-xiv.html, id L15429.
Form and metre
Songs to Seraphine XIV is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% 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 onward · strandA · downward · sandA
- 2 -A-A power · failA · slower · availA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The roaring waves press onward | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| To reach the strand. | 4 | ···· |
| Then swell, and, crashing downward, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Break on the sand. | 4 | ···· |
| They roll with surging power, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Nor rest, nor fail-- | 4 | ···· |
| And then ebb slow and slower-- | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Of what avail? | 4 | ··˘/ |
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.