To Angelique IV
From the slightest of emotions,What a sudden transformation,To the most unbounded passion,And the tenderest relation!
Every day it waxes deeper,My affection for my lady.I am almost half-persuadedThat I am in love already.
Beautiful her soul: though trulyThat's a question of opinion.I am surer of the beautyOf the bodily dominion.
Oh that waist! And oh that forehead!Oh that nose! The sweet enclosureOf the lovely lips in smiling!And the bearing's proud composure!
Words in this poem
- enclosure n.
- Inclosure. See Inclosure.
- composure n.
- The act of composing, or that which is composed; a composition. [From Compose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Angelique IV 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, To Angelique IV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/to-angelique-iv.html, id L15435.
Form and metre
To Angelique IV is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 16 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 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 emotions · transformationA · passion · relationA
- 3 -A-A truly · opinionA · beauty · dominionA
- 4 -A-A forehead · enclosureA · smiling · composureA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From the slightest of emotions, | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| What a sudden transformation, | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| To the most unbounded passion, | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| And the tenderest relation! | 8 | ··/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Every day it waxes deeper, | 9 | /˘˘··/˘/˘ |
| My affection for my lady. | 8 | ·˘/˘··/˘ |
| I am almost half-persuaded | 8 | ··/··˘/˘ |
| That I am in love already. | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Beautiful her soul: though truly | 8 | /˘˘···/˘ |
| That's a question of opinion. | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| I am surer of the beauty | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Of the bodily dominion. | 8 | ··/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Oh that waist! And oh that forehead! | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Oh that nose! The sweet enclosure | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Of the lovely lips in smiling! | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And the bearing's proud composure! | 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.