Homeward Bound LXXXIX
Death is like the balmy night,Life is like the sultry day;It is dark, and I am sleepy.I am weary of the light.
O'er my couch a tree doth springIn its boughs a nightingaleSings of love, of naught but love,In my dream I hear him sing.
Words in this poem
- balmy a.
- Having the qualities of balm; odoriferous; aromatic; assuaging; soothing; refreshing; mild.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound LXXXIX 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 LXXXIX, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-lxxxix.html, id L15414.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound LXXXIX is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 nightA · day · sleepy · lightA
- 2 A--A springA · nightingale · love · singA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Death is like the balmy night, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Life is like the sultry day; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| It is dark, and I am sleepy. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| I am weary of the light. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| O'er my couch a tree doth spring | 7 | ······· |
| In its boughs a nightingale | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Sings of love, of naught but love, | 7 | ······· |
| In my dream I hear him sing. | 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.