The Bards of Olden Time
Say, where is now that glorious race, where now are the singersWho, with the accents of life, listening nations enthralled,Sung down from heaven the gods, and sung mankind up to heaven,And who the spirit bore up high on the pinions of song?Ah! the singers still live; the actions only are wanting,And to awake the glad harp, only a welcoming ear.Happy bards of a happy world! Your life-teeming accentsFlew round from mouth unto mouth, gladdening every race.With the devotion with which the gods were received, each one welcomedThat which the genius for him, plastic and breathing, then formed.With the glow of the song were inflamed the listener's senses,And with the listener's sense, nourished the singer the glow--Nourished and cleansed it,--fortunate one! for whom in the voicesOf the people still clear echoed the soul of the song,And to whom from without appeared, in life, the great godhead,Whom the bard of these days scarcely can feel in his breast.
Words in this poem
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- teeming a.
- Prolific; productive.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Bards of Olden Time 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, The Bards of Olden Time, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/the-bards-of-olden-time.html, id L21870.
Form and metre
The Bards of Olden Time is 16 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.
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 ---AA--------A-- singers · enthralled · heaven · songA · wantingA · ear · accents · race · welcomed · formed · senses · glow · voices · songA · godhead · breast
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Say, where is now that glorious race, where now are the singers | 15 | ·····/˘˘·····/˘ |
| Who, with the accents of life, listening nations enthralled, | 14 | ···/˘··/˘˘/˘˘/ |
| Sung down from heaven the gods, and sung mankind up to heaven, | 15 | ···/˘····//··/˘ |
| And who the spirit bore up high on the pinions of song? | 14 | ···/˘·····/˘·· |
| Ah! the singers still live; the actions only are wanting, | 14 | ··/˘···/˘/˘·/˘ |
| And to awake the glad harp, only a welcoming ear. | 14 | ··˘/···/˘·/˘˘· |
| Happy bards of a happy world! Your life-teeming accents | 14 | /˘···/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Flew round from mouth unto mouth, gladdening every race. | 14 | ·······/˘˘/˘˘· |
| With the devotion with which the gods were received, each one welcomed | 16 | ··˘/˘·····˘/··/˘ |
| That which the genius for him, plastic and breathing, then formed. | 14 | ···/˘··/˘·/˘·· |
| With the glow of the song were inflamed the listener's senses, | 15 | ·······˘/·/˘˘/˘ |
| And with the listener's sense, nourished the singer the glow-- | 14 | ···/˘˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Nourished and cleansed it,--fortunate one! for whom in the voices | 15 | /˘···/˘˘·····/˘ |
| Of the people still clear echoed the soul of the song, | 14 | ··/˘··/˘˘····· |
| And to whom from without appeared, in life, the great godhead, | 14 | ······˘/····/· |
| Whom the bard of these days scarcely can feel in his breast. | 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.