Part II: Section 6
Oft at her lattice meditating,With fearful heart-strings palpitating,Wretched Tamàra still surveysThe horizon with an anxious gaze.Whole days she waits, for like a sighShe hears a whisper—"He is nigh."No empty hopes her visions send her,Nor had he erst appeared in vainWith words of love so strange and tender,With eyes that burned with quenchless pain.Yet she was sick, nor could discoverWhat ill her trembling soul dismayed,Her heart had worshipped that new lover,What time her lips to God had prayed.Weary with strife—her senses reeling,Whene'er she laid her down to rest,Her pillow throbbed with fitful feelingAnd she upsprang aghast, oppressed,With aching heart and fevered breast."Love!"—Magic word! Her pale lips gasp it,But the elusive vision flies,And, when she spreads her arms to clasp it,The kiss she felt grows cold and dies.
Words in this poem
- quenchless a.
- Incapable of being quenched; inextinguishable; as, quenchless fire or fury.
- discover v. i.
- To discover or show one's self.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- fitful a.
- Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable. [From 7th Fit.]
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- gasp v. i.
- To open the mouth wide in catching the breath, or in laborious respiration; to labor for breath; to respire convulsively; to pant violently. [OE. gaspen, gaispen, to yawn, gasp, Icel. geispa to yawn; akin to Sw. gäspa, Dan. gispe to gasp.]
- elusive a.
- Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Part II: Section 6 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Demon, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff by Robert Burness, B.A. (Oxon.), Edinburgh: Douglas & Foulis, 1918, Internet Archive, the Robert Burness 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: Mikhail Lermontov, Part II: Section 6, in The Demon (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lermontov-demon/2-6.html, id L28475.
Form and metre
Part II: Section 6 is 23 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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-C-CDEDEFGFGGHIHI meditating · palpitating · surveysA · gazeA · sighB · nighB · her · vainC · tender · painC · discoverD · dismayedE · loverD · prayedE · reelingF · restG · feelingF · oppressedG · breastG · itH · fliesI · itH · diesI
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oft at her lattice meditating, | 9 | ···/˘/˘·˘ |
| With fearful heart-strings palpitating, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘ |
| Wretched Tamàra still surveys | 8 | /˘····/· |
| The horizon with an anxious gaze. | 9 | ·˘/˘··/˘· |
| Whole days she waits, for like a sigh | 8 | ········ |
| She hears a whisper—"He is nigh." | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| No empty hopes her visions send her, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| Nor had he erst appeared in vain | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| With words of love so strange and tender, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| With eyes that burned with quenchless pain. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Yet she was sick, nor could discover | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| What ill her trembling soul dismayed, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Her heart had worshipped that new lover, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| What time her lips to God had prayed. | 8 | ········ |
| Weary with strife—her senses reeling, | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Whene'er she laid her down to rest, | 9 | ········· |
| Her pillow throbbed with fitful feeling | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And she upsprang aghast, oppressed, | 8 | ····˘/˘/ |
| With aching heart and fevered breast. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| "Love!"—Magic word! Her pale lips gasp it, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| But the elusive vision flies, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| And, when she spreads her arms to clasp it, | 9 | ········· |
| The kiss she felt grows cold and dies. | 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.