Spanish Evening Hymn
Ave! now let prayer and musicMeet in love on earth and sea!Now, sweet Mother! may the wearyTurn from this cold world to thee!
From the wide and restless watersHear the sailor’s hymn arise?From his watch-fire midst the mountains,Lo! to thee the shepherd cries!
Yet, when thus full hearts find voices,If o’erburden’d souls there be,Dark and silent in their anguish,Aid those captives! set them free!
Touch them, every fount unsealingWhere the frozen tears lie deep;Thou, the Mother of all sorrows,Aid! oh, aid to pray and weep!
About this text
Spanish Evening Hymn is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, Spanish Evening Hymn, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/spanish-evening-hymn.html, id L19632.
Form and metre
Spanish Evening Hymn is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 music · seaA · weary · theeA
- 2 AA-A watersA · ariseA · mountains · criesA
- 3 -A-A voices · beA · anguish · freeA
- 4 -A-A unsealing · deepA · sorrows · weepA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ave! now let prayer and music | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Meet in love on earth and sea! | 7 | ······· |
| Now, sweet Mother! may the weary | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Turn from this cold world to thee! | 7 | ······· |
| From the wide and restless waters | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Hear the sailor’s hymn arise? | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| From his watch-fire midst the mountains, | 8 | ···/··/˘ |
| Lo! to thee the shepherd cries! | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Yet, when thus full hearts find voices, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| If o’erburden’d souls there be, | 7 | ······· |
| Dark and silent in their anguish, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Aid those captives! set them free! | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Touch them, every fount unsealing | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| Where the frozen tears lie deep; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Thou, the Mother of all sorrows, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Aid! oh, aid to pray and weep! | 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.