Homeward Bound LXIV
Thou hast diamonds, and pearls and jewels,All thy heart covets in store,And the loveliest eyes under heaven--My darling, what wouldst thou more?
Upon thine eyes, so lovely,Have I written o'er and o'erImmortal songs and sonnets--My darling, what wouldst thou more?
And with thine eyes so lovelyThou hast stung me to the core,And hast compassed my undoing--My darling, what wouldst thou more?
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- compassed a.
- Rounded; arched.
- undoing n.
- The reversal of what has been done.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound LXIV 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 LXIV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-lxiv.html, id L15389.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound LXIV is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 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 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 -A-A jewels · storeA · heaven · moreA
- 3 -A-A lovely · coreA · undoing · moreA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou hast diamonds, and pearls and jewels, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| All thy heart covets in store, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| And the loveliest eyes under heaven-- | 9 | ········/ |
| My darling, what wouldst thou more? | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Upon thine eyes, so lovely, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Have I written o'er and o'er | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Immortal songs and sonnets-- | 7 | ˘/˘··/˘ |
| My darling, what wouldst thou more? | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And with thine eyes so lovely | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Thou hast stung me to the core, | 7 | ······· |
| And hast compassed my undoing-- | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| My darling, what wouldst thou more? | 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.