Come Home!
Come home! There is a sorrowing breathIn music since ye went,And the early flower-scents wander byWith mournful memories blent.The tones in every household voiceAre grown more sad and deep;And the sweet word--brother--wakes a wishTo turn aside and weep.
O ye beloved! come home! The hourOf many a greeting tone,The time of hearth-light and of songReturns--and ye are gone!And darkly, heavily it fallsOn the forsaken room,Burdening the heart with tenderness,That deepens midst the gloom.
Where finds it you, ye wandering ones!With all your boyhood’s gleeUntamed? Beneath the desert’s palm,Or on the lone mid-sea?By stormy hills of battles old?Or where dark rivers foam?--Oh! life is dim where ye are not--Back, ye beloved, come home!
Come with the leaves and winds of spring,And swift birds, o’er the main!Our love is grown too sorrowful--Bring us its youth again!Bring the glad tones to music back!Still, still your home is fair,The spirit of your sunny lifeAlone is wanting there!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
- boyhood n.
- The state of being a boy; the time during which one is a boy. [Boy + -hood.]
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Come Home! is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, Come Home!, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/come-home.html, id L19498.
Form and metre
Come Home! is 32 lines in 4 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 -A-A-B-B breath · wentA · by · blentA · voice · deepB · wish · weepB
- 2 -----A-A hour · tone · song · gone · falls · roomA · tenderness · gloomA
- 3 -A-A-B-B ones · gleeA · palm · seaA · old · foamB · not · homeB
- 4 -A-A-B-B spring · mainA · sorrowful · againA · back · fairB · life · thereB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come home! There is a sorrowing breath | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| In music since ye went, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And the early flower-scents wander by | 10 | ··/˘/˘·/˘· |
| With mournful memories blent. | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘· |
| The tones in every household voice | 9 | ···/˘˘/·· |
| Are grown more sad and deep; | 6 | ······ |
| And the sweet word--brother--wakes a wish | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| To turn aside and weep. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| O ye beloved! come home! The hour | 9 | ··˘/···/˘ |
| Of many a greeting tone, | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| The time of hearth-light and of song | 8 | ········ |
| Returns--and ye are gone! | 6 | ˘/···· |
| And darkly, heavily it falls | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| On the forsaken room, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Burdening the heart with tenderness, | 9 | /˘˘···/˘˘ |
| That deepens midst the gloom. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Where finds it you, ye wandering ones! | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| With all your boyhood’s glee | 6 | ···/·· |
| Untamed? Beneath the desert’s palm, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Or on the lone mid-sea? | 6 | ······ |
| By stormy hills of battles old? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Or where dark rivers foam?-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Oh! life is dim where ye are not-- | 8 | ········ |
| Back, ye beloved, come home! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Come with the leaves and winds of spring, | 8 | ········ |
| And swift birds, o’er the main! | 6 | ······ |
| Our love is grown too sorrowful-- | 9 | /˘····/˘˘ |
| Bring us its youth again! | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Bring the glad tones to music back! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Still, still your home is fair, | 6 | ······ |
| The spirit of your sunny life | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Alone is wanting there! | 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.