Homeward Bound XXIV
The maiden sleeps in her chamber,Where the trembling moonbeams glance,Without there singeth and ringethThe melody of a dance.
"I will look just once from the window,To see who breaks my rest."A skeleton fiddles before her,And sings like one possessed.
"To dance with me you promised,And you have broken your vow.To-night is a ball in the churchyard,Come out and dance with me now."
The music bewitches the maiden;Forth from her home doth she go;She follows the bony fiddler,Who sings as he scrapes his bow.
He fiddles, and hops and dances,And rattles his bones as he plays;His skull nods grimly and strangely,In the clear moonlight's rays.
Words in this poem
- churchyard n.
- The ground adjoining a church, in which the dead are buried; a cemetery.
- fiddler n.
- One who plays on a fiddle or violin. [AS. fi.]
- grimly a.
- Grim; hideous; stern.
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XXIV 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 XXIV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xxiv.html, id L15351.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XXIV is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 5% 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 chamber · glanceA · ringeth · danceA
- 2 -A-A window · restA · her · possessedA
- 3 -A-A promised · vowA · churchyard · nowA
- 4 -A-A maiden · goA · fiddler · bowA
- 5 AA-A dancesA · playsA · strangely · raysA
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 maiden sleeps in her chamber, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Where the trembling moonbeams glance, | 8 | ··/˘˘/·· |
| Without there singeth and ringeth | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| The melody of a dance. | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| "I will look just once from the window, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| To see who breaks my rest." | 6 | ······ |
| A skeleton fiddles before her, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And sings like one possessed. | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| "To dance with me you promised, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And you have broken your vow. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| To-night is a ball in the churchyard, | 9 | ·······/· |
| Come out and dance with me now." | 7 | ······· |
| The music bewitches the maiden; | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘·/˘ |
| Forth from her home doth she go; | 7 | ······· |
| She follows the bony fiddler, | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| Who sings as he scrapes his bow. | 7 | ······· |
| He fiddles, and hops and dances, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| And rattles his bones as he plays; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| His skull nods grimly and strangely, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| In the clear moonlight's rays. | 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.