Homeward Bound LV
Did not my pallid cheek betrayMy love's unhappy fate?And wilt thou force my haughty lipsTo beg and supplicate?
Oh far too haughty are these lips,They can but kiss and jest.They speak perchance a scornful word,While my heart breaks in my breast.
Words in this poem
- haughty a.
- High; lofty; bold. [OE. hautein, F. hautain, fr. haut high, OF. also halt, fr. L. altus. See Altitude.]
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound LV is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Ballads, Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, the Emma Lazarus translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Heinrich Heine, Homeward Bound LV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-lv.html, id L15380.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound LV is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 betray · fateA · lips · supplicateA
- 2 -A-A lips · jestA · word · breastA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Did not my pallid cheek betray | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| My love's unhappy fate? | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| And wilt thou force my haughty lips | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To beg and supplicate? | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Oh far too haughty are these lips, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They can but kiss and jest. | 6 | ······ |
| They speak perchance a scornful word, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| While my heart breaks in my breast. | 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.