The Wanderer: Translated from the German of Schmidt Von Lubeck
I come down from the hills alone;Mist wraps the vale, the billows moan!I wander on in thoughtful care,For ever asking, sighing--where?
The sunshine round seems dim and cold,And flowers are pale, and life is old,And words fall soulless on my ear--Oh, I am still a stranger here!
Where art thou, land, sweet land, mine own!Still sought for, long’d for, never known?The land, the land of hope, of light,Where glow my roses freshly bright,
And where my friends the green paths tread,And where in beauty rise my dead;The land that speaks my native speech,The blessed land I may not reach!
I wander on in thoughtful care,For ever asking, sighing--where?And spirit-sounds come answering this--“There, where thou art not, there is bliss!”
Words in this poem
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- soulless a.
- Being without a soul, or without greatness or nobleness of mind; mean; spiritless.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Wanderer: Translated from the German of Schmidt Von Lubeck 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, The Wanderer: Translated from the German of Schmidt Von Lubeck, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/the-wanderer-translated-from-the-german-of-schmidt-von-lubec.html, id L19603.
Form and metre
The Wanderer: Translated from the German of Schmidt Von Lubeck is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic 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 AABB aloneA · moanA · careB · whereB
- 2 AABB coldA · oldA · earB · hereB
- 3 AABB ownA · knownA · lightB · brightB
- 4 AABB treadA · deadA · speechB · reachB
- 5 AABB careA · whereA · thisB · blissB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I come down from the hills alone; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Mist wraps the vale, the billows moan! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I wander on in thoughtful care, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| For ever asking, sighing--where? | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| The sunshine round seems dim and cold, | 8 | ·/······ |
| And flowers are pale, and life is old, | 8 | ·/······ |
| And words fall soulless on my ear-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Oh, I am still a stranger here! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Where art thou, land, sweet land, mine own! | 8 | ········ |
| Still sought for, long’d for, never known? | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The land, the land of hope, of light, | 8 | ········ |
| Where glow my roses freshly bright, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And where my friends the green paths tread, | 8 | ········ |
| And where in beauty rise my dead; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The land that speaks my native speech, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The blessed land I may not reach! | 8 | ··˘····· |
| I wander on in thoughtful care, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| For ever asking, sighing--where? | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And spirit-sounds come answering this-- | 8 | ·/··/˘˘· |
| “There, where thou art not, there is bliss!” | 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.