Homeward Bound XXV
I gazed upon her portrait,While dark dreams filled my brain,And those beloved featuresBegan to breathe again.
I saw upon her lips thenA wondrous smile arise,And as with tears of pityGlistened once more her eyes.
Adown my cheeks in silence,The tears came flowing free.And oh! I cannot believe it,That thou art lost to me!
Words in this poem
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XXV 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 XXV, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xxv.html, id L15352.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XXV is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 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 iambic trimeter.
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 portrait · brainA · features · againA
- 2 -A-A then · ariseA · pity · eyesA
- 3 -A-A silence · freeA · it · meA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I gazed upon her portrait, | 8 | ··˘···/˘ |
| While dark dreams filled my brain, | 7 | ····˘·· |
| And those beloved features | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| Began to breathe again. | 6 | ˘/··˘/ |
| I saw upon her lips then | 7 | ······· |
| A wondrous smile arise, | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| And as with tears of pity | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Glistened once more her eyes. | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| Adown my cheeks in silence, | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| The tears came flowing free. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And oh! I cannot believe it, | 8 | ···˘/˘/· |
| That thou art lost to me! | 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.