In the Black Forest
I lay beneath the pine trees,And looked aloft, where, throughThe dusky, clustered tree-tops,Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue.
I shut my eyes, and a fancyFluttered my sense around:“I lie here dead and buried,And this is churchyard ground.
“I am at rest for ever;Ended the stress and strife.”Straight I fell to and sorrowedFor the pitiful past life.
Right wronged, and knowledge wasted;Wise labour spurned for ease;The sloth and the sin and the failure;Did I grow sad for these?
They had made me sad so often;Not now they made me sad;My heart was full of sorrowFor joy it never had.
Words in this poem
- churchyard n.
- The ground adjoining a church, in which the dead are buried; a cemetery.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- sorrowed a.
- Accompanied with sorrow; sorrowful.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In the Black Forest is in the public domain. This text is taken from A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, In the Black Forest, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/in-the-black-forest.html, id L21552.
Form and metre
In the Black Forest is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 trees · throughA · tops · blueA
- 2 -A-A fancy · aroundA · buried · groundA
- 3 -A-A ever · strifeA · sorrowed · lifeA
- 4 -A-A wasted · easeA · failure · theseA
- 5 -A-A often · sadA · sorrow · hadA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I lay beneath the pine trees, | 7 | ······· |
| And looked aloft, where, through | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| The dusky, clustered tree-tops, | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue. | 6 | ······ |
| I shut my eyes, and a fancy | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Fluttered my sense around: | 6 | /˘···· |
| “I lie here dead and buried, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And this is churchyard ground. | 6 | ···/·· |
| “I am at rest for ever; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Ended the stress and strife.” | 6 | /˘···· |
| Straight I fell to and sorrowed | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| For the pitiful past life. | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Right wronged, and knowledge wasted; | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Wise labour spurned for ease; | 6 | ·/···· |
| The sloth and the sin and the failure; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Did I grow sad for these? | 6 | ······ |
| They had made me sad so often; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Not now they made me sad; | 6 | ······ |
| My heart was full of sorrow | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| For joy it never had. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.