Homeward Bound XXVI
I, a most wretched Atlas, the huge world,The whole huge world of sorrow I must carry.Yea, the unbearable must bear, though meanwhileMy heart break in my bosom.
Thou haughty heart, thyself hast willed it thus,Thou would'st be happy, infinitely happy,Or infinitely wretched, haughty heart!And lo! now art thou wretched.
Words in this poem
- meanwhile n.
- The intervening time; as, in the meantime (or mean time).
- haughty a.
- High; lofty; bold. [OE. hautein, F. hautain, fr. haut high, OF. also halt, fr. L. altus. See Altitude.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XXVI 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 XXVI, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xxvi.html, id L15353.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XXVI is 8 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I, a most wretched Atlas, the huge world, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The whole huge world of sorrow I must carry. | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Yea, the unbearable must bear, though meanwhile | 10 | ··˘/˘···/· |
| My heart break in my bosom. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Thou haughty heart, thyself hast willed it thus, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Thou would'st be happy, infinitely happy, | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Or infinitely wretched, haughty heart! | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And lo! now art thou wretched. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.