Germany and Her Princes
Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy,For the obedient alone make him who governs them great.But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make itHarder as kings to be great,--easier, though, to be men!
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Germany and Her Princes is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Germany and Her Princes, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/germany-and-her-princes.html, id L21852.
Form and metre
Germany and Her Princes is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy, | 16 | ··˘//˘/······˘/˘ |
| For the obedient alone make him who governs them great. | 14 | ··˘/˘˘/···/˘·· |
| But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make it | 14 | ··/˘·····/˘··· |
| Harder as kings to be great,--easier, though, to be men! | 13 | /˘·····/˘···· |
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.