Homeward Bound LXXXIII
Next to me lives Don Henriquez,He whom folk "the beauty" call;Neighborly our rooms are partedOnly by a single wall.
Salamanca's ladies flutterWhen he strides along the street,Clinking spurs, mustachoes twirling,And with hounds about his feet.
But in quiet hours of eveningHe will sit at home apart,His guitar between his fingers,And sweet dreams within his heart.
Then he smites the chords with passion,All at once begins to strum.Ah, like squalling cats his scrapings,Toll-de-roll and toodle-dum!
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- neighborly a.
- Apropriate to the relation of neighbors; having frequent or familiar intercourse; kind; civil; social; friendly. [Also written neighbourly.]
- strum v. t.
- To play on an instrument of music, or as on an instrument, in an unskillful or noisy way; to thrum; as, to strum a piano. [Probably of imitative origin. Cf. Thrum.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound LXXXIII 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 LXXXIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-lxxxiii.html, id L15408.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound LXXXIII is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A henriquez · callA · parted · wallA
- 2 -A-A flutter · streetA · twirling · feetA
- 3 -A-A evening · apartA · fingers · heartA
- 4 -A-A passion · strumA · scrapings · dumA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Next to me lives Don Henriquez, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| He whom folk "the beauty" call; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Neighborly our rooms are parted | 9 | /˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| Only by a single wall. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Salamanca's ladies flutter | 8 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| When he strides along the street, | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| Clinking spurs, mustachoes twirling, | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| And with hounds about his feet. | 7 | ······· |
| But in quiet hours of evening | 9 | ··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| He will sit at home apart, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| His guitar between his fingers, | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| And sweet dreams within his heart. | 7 | ······· |
| Then he smites the chords with passion, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| All at once begins to strum. | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| Ah, like squalling cats his scrapings, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Toll-de-roll and toodle-dum! | 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.