Homeward Bound XLVIII
Heart, my heart, oh, be not shaken!Bravely bear thy fate. Once moreShall the coming Spring restoreWhat the Winter rude hath taken.
How abundant is thy measure!Still, O world, how fair thou art!And thou yet may'st love, my heart,Everything that gives thee pleasure.
Words in this poem
- bravely adv.
- In a brave manner; courageously; gallantly; valiantly; splendidly; nobly.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XLVIII 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 XLVIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xlviii.html, id L15373.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XLVIII is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 4 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 ABBA shakenA · moreB · restoreB · takenA
- 2 ABBA measureA · artB · heartB · pleasureA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Heart, my heart, oh, be not shaken! | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Bravely bear thy fate. Once more | 7 | /˘····· |
| Shall the coming Spring restore | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| What the Winter rude hath taken. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| How abundant is thy measure! | 8 | ·˘/˘··/˘ |
| Still, O world, how fair thou art! | 7 | ······· |
| And thou yet may'st love, my heart, | 7 | ······· |
| Everything that gives thee pleasure. | 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.