To Emma
Far away, where darkness reigneth,All my dreams of bliss are flown;Yet with love my gaze remainethFixed on one fair star alone.But, alas! that star so brightSheds no lustre save by night.
If in slumbers ending never,Gloomy death had sealed thine eyes,Thou hadst lived in memory ever--Thou hadst lived still in my sighs;But, alas! in light thou livest--To my love no answer givest!
Can the sweet hopes love once cherishedEmma, can they transient prove?What has passed away and perished--Emma, say, can that be love?That bright flame of heavenly birth--Can it die like things of earth?
Words in this poem
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Emma 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, To Emma, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/to-emma.html, id L21823.
Form and metre
To Emma is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABABCC reignethA · flownB · remainethA · aloneB · brightC · nightC
- 2 ABABCC neverA · eyesB · everA · sighsB · livestC · givestC
- 3 ABABCC cherishedA · proveB · perishedA · loveB · birthC · earthC
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Far away, where darkness reigneth, | 8 | ·˘/·/˘/˘ |
| All my dreams of bliss are flown; | 7 | ······· |
| Yet with love my gaze remaineth | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Fixed on one fair star alone. | 8 | ·˘····˘/ |
| But, alas! that star so bright | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Sheds no lustre save by night. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| If in slumbers ending never, | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Gloomy death had sealed thine eyes, | 8 | /˘···˘·· |
| Thou hadst lived in memory ever-- | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| Thou hadst lived still in my sighs; | 8 | ···˘···· |
| But, alas! in light thou livest-- | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| To my love no answer givest! | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Can the sweet hopes love once cherished | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Emma, can they transient prove? | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| What has passed away and perished-- | 8 | ···˘/·/˘ |
| Emma, say, can that be love? | 7 | /˘····· |
| That bright flame of heavenly birth-- | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Can it die like things of earth? | 7 | ······· |
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.