Homeward Bound XIII
The storm for a dance is piping,With bellow and roar and hiss.Hurrah! how the ship is tossing,What a merry wild night is this!
A living mountain of waterThe sea upheaves with might.Here an abyss is yawning;There towers a foaming height.
And sounds of retching and cursesForth from the cabin come;And I, to the mast close clinging,Long to be safe at home.
Words in this poem
- piping a.
- Playing on a musical pipe. [From Pipe, v.]
- hurrah interj.
- A word used as a shout of joy, triumph, applause, encouragement, or welcome. [Cf. G., Dan., & Sw. hurra. Cf. Huzza.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XIII 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 XIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xiii.html, id L15340.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XIII is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 6 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 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 piping · hissA · tossing · thisA
- 2 -A-A water · mightA · yawning · heightA
- 3 -A-A curses · comeA · clinging · homeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The storm for a dance is piping, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| With bellow and roar and hiss. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Hurrah! how the ship is tossing, | 8 | ˘/····/˘ |
| What a merry wild night is this! | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| A living mountain of water | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| The sea upheaves with might. | 6 | ······ |
| Here an abyss is yawning; | 7 | ··˘/·/˘ |
| There towers a foaming height. | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| And sounds of retching and curses | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Forth from the cabin come; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And I, to the mast close clinging, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Long to be safe at home. | 6 | ······ |
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.