Homeward Bound XXVIII
I dreamed that the moon looked sadly down,And the stars with a troubled ray;I went to my sweetheart's home--the townLies many a league away.
My longing led me before her door;I kissed the stone steps brown,That her feet had touched in the days of yore,And the trailing hem of her gown.
The night was long, the night was cold,Ice-cold did the stone steps seem.In the window her own wan face, behold!Illumed by the moon's pale beam.
Words in this poem
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homeward Bound XXVIII 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 XXVIII, in Poems and Ballads (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #31726, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/heine-poems-ballads/homeward-bound-xxviii.html, id L15355.
Form and metre
Homeward Bound XXVIII is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB downA · rayB · townA · awayB
- 2 ABAB doorA · brownB · yoreA · gownB
- 3 ABAB coldA · seemB · beholdA · beamB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I dreamed that the moon looked sadly down, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And the stars with a troubled ray; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I went to my sweetheart's home--the town | 9 | ····/···· |
| Lies many a league away. | 7 | ·/˘··˘/ |
| My longing led me before her door; | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| I kissed the stone steps brown, | 7 | ··˘···· |
| That her feet had touched in the days of yore, | 10 | ·········· |
| And the trailing hem of her gown. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| The night was long, the night was cold, | 8 | ········ |
| Ice-cold did the stone steps seem. | 7 | ······· |
| In the window her own wan face, behold! | 10 | ··/˘····˘/ |
| Illumed by the moon's pale beam. | 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.