Each line is in reality composed of two verses and thus we have here the form so commonly used by Heine (48, 49, 50, 51, 52 and others). Each verse has in reality four measures, the last measure being taken up by a pause:
Es stand in al ten Zei ten | | ein Schloss so hoch und hehr.
X — X — X — X * X — X — X — **
In music these pauses may be taken up in whole or in part by lengthening the preceding notes (to some extent this holds true in reading, adding to the effect of the enjambement). Die Lorelei offers a good example:
[Musical notation in original for following lyric. Transcriber.]
Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, daß
ich so traurig bin; ein Märchen aus alten
Zeiten, das kommt mir nicht aus bem Sinn. Die
Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt, und ruhig fließt der Rhein; der
Gipfel des Berges funkelt im Abendsonnenschein.
* * * * *
NOTES
GOETHE
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the world's greatest lyric genius, was born August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main. In his being there were happily blended his mother's joyous fancy and the sterner traits of his father. Thus a rich imagination, a wealth of feeling, and the power of poetic expression went hand in hand with an indomitable will. In the spring of 1770 the young poet went to Strassburg to complete his law course. There Herder happened to be, even then a famed critic and scholar, and he aroused in Goethe a love and understanding of what was really great and genuine in literature: especially Homer, the Bible, Shakspere, and the Volkslied i.e., the simple folksong. In the fall of the year Goethe met Friederike Brion in the parsonage at Sesenheim, a village near Strassburg. Now Herder's teaching bore fruit in an outburst of real song (1, 2 and 4). The influence of the Volkslied is clearly discernible in the unaffected naturalness, spontaneity, and simplicity of these lyrics. Thus das Heidenröslein, which symbolizes the tragic close of the sweet idyll of Sesenheim, is to all intents and purposes a Volkslied.
The following years, spent for the most part in Frankfurt, were the period of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) in the poet's life and work. His love for Lili Schönemann, a rich banker's daughter and society belle of Frankfurt, only heightened this unrest (3). In the fall of 1775 the young duke Karl August called Goethe to Weimar. Under the influence of Frau von Stein, a woman of rare culture, Goethe developed to calm maturity. Compare the first Wanderers Nachtlied (written February 1776), a passionate prayer for peace, and the; second (written September 1780), the embodiment of that peace attained. Even more important in this development is the fact that Goethe, in assuming his many official positions in the little dukedom, entered voluntarily a circle of everyday duties (7 and 8). Thus the heaven-storming Titan, as Goethe reveals himself in his Prometheus, learns to respect and revere the natural limitations of mortality (15 and especially 16).