Homeward Bound XXII
The quiet night broods over roof-tree and steeple;Within this house dwelt my treasure rare.'Tis long since I left the town and its people,But the house stands still on the self-same square.
Here stands, too, a man; toward heaven he gazes,And he wrings his hands with a wild despair.I shudder with awe when his face he raises,For the moonlight shows me mine own self there.
Oh, pale sad creature! my ghost, my double,Why dost thou ape my passion and tears,That haunted me here with such cruel trouble,So many a night in the olden years?
Words in this poem
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XXII 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 XXII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xxii.html, id L15349.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XXII is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABAB steepleA · rareB · peopleA · squareB
- 2 ABAB gazesA · despairB · raisesA · thereB
- 3 ABAB doubleA · tearsB · troubleA · yearsB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The quiet night broods over roof-tree and steeple; | 10 | ·/······/˘ |
| Within this house dwelt my treasure rare. | 9 | ······/˘· |
| 'Tis long since I left the town and its people, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| But the house stands still on the self-same square. | 10 | ·········· |
| Here stands, too, a man; toward heaven he gazes, | 11 | ·······/·/˘ |
| And he wrings his hands with a wild despair. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| I shudder with awe when his face he raises, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| For the moonlight shows me mine own self there. | 10 | ··/······· |
| Oh, pale sad creature! my ghost, my double, | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| Why dost thou ape my passion and tears, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| That haunted me here with such cruel trouble, | 10 | ·/˘····//˘ |
| So many a night in the olden years? | 9 | ·/····/˘· |
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.