Homeward Bound LXIII
I fain would outpour all my sorrowsIn a single word to-day.To the merry winds I would trust it,They would merrily bear it away.
They would bear it to thee, my darling,The word of sorrowful grace.Thou should'st hear it at every hour,Thou shouldst hear it in every place.
And scarce in the midnight darknessShouldst thou close thine eyes in sleep,Ere my whispered word, it would follow,Though thy dream were ever so deep.
Words in this poem
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- outpour n.
- A flowing out; a free discharge.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound LXIII 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 LXIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-lxiii.html, id L15388.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound LXIII is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 sorrows · dayA · it · awayA
- 2 -A-A darling · graceA · hour · placeA
- 3 -A-A darkness · sleepA · follow · deepA
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I fain would outpour all my sorrows | 9 | ····/··/˘ |
| In a single word to-day. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| To the merry winds I would trust it, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| They would merrily bear it away. | 8 | ··/˘··˘/ |
| They would bear it to thee, my darling, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The word of sorrowful grace. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Thou should'st hear it at every hour, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Thou shouldst hear it in every place. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And scarce in the midnight darkness | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| Shouldst thou close thine eyes in sleep, | 7 | ······· |
| Ere my whispered word, it would follow, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Though thy dream were ever so deep. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
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.