The Spanish Lady's Love
To mount the hills or scaffold, we go to-morrow:Hernani, blame me not for this my boldness.Art thou mine evil genius or mine angel?I know not, but I am thy slave. Now hear me:Go where thou wilt, I follow thee. Remain,And I remain. Why do I thus? I know not.I feel that I must see thee--see thee still--See thee for ever. When thy footstep dies,It is as if my heart no more would beat;When thou art gone, I am absent from myself;But when the footstep which I love and long forStrikes on mine ear again--then I rememberI live, and feel my soul return to me.
Words in this poem
- hernani n.
- A thin silk or woolen goods, for women's dresses, woven in various styles and colors.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Spanish Lady's Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands 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: Victor Hugo, The Spanish Lady's Love, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-spanish-lady-s-love.html, id L26874.
Form and metre
The Spanish Lady's Love is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 --AB--A-----B morrow · boldness · angelA · meB · remain · not · stillA · dies · beat · myself · for · remember · meB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| To mount the hills or scaffold, we go to-morrow: | 12 | ·····/˘···/˘ |
| Hernani, blame me not for this my boldness. | 11 | ˘/˘······/˘ |
| Art thou mine evil genius or mine angel? | 11 | ···/˘/˘··/˘ |
| I know not, but I am thy slave. Now hear me: | 11 | ··········· |
| Go where thou wilt, I follow thee. Remain, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| And I remain. Why do I thus? I know not. | 11 | ··˘/······· |
| I feel that I must see thee--see thee still-- | 10 | ·········· |
| See thee for ever. When thy footstep dies, | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| It is as if my heart no more would beat; | 10 | ·········· |
| When thou art gone, I am absent from myself; | 11 | ······/˘··/ |
| But when the footstep which I love and long for | 11 | ···/······· |
| Strikes on mine ear again--then I remember | 11 | ····˘/··˘/˘ |
| I live, and feel my soul return to me. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
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.