Home Thoughts
Oh something just now must be happening there!That suddenly and quiveringly here,Amid the city’s noises, I must thinkOf mangoes leaning o’er the river’s brink,And dexterous Davie climbing high above,The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove,And toss them quickly in the tangled massOf wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass;And Cyril coming through the bramble-trackA prize bunch of bananas on his back;And Georgie--none could ever dive like him--Throwing his scanty clothes off for a swim;And schoolboys, from Bridge-tunnel going home,Watching the waters downward dash and foam.This is no daytime dream, there’s something in it,Oh something’s happening there this very minute!
Words in this poem
- quiveringly adv.
- With quivering motion.
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Home Thoughts is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harlem shadows, Project Gutenberg ebook #64989; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Claude McKay, Home Thoughts, in Harlem Shadows (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #64989, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mckay-harlem-shadows/home-thoughts.html, id L01340.
Form and metre
Home Thoughts is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH thereA · hereA · thinkB · brinkB · aboveC · removeC · massD · grassD · trackE · backE · himF · swimF · homeG · foamG · itH · minuteH
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh something just now must be happening there! | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| That suddenly and quiveringly here, | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘˘· |
| Amid the city’s noises, I must think | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘··· |
| Of mangoes leaning o’er the river’s brink, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And dexterous Davie climbing high above, | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘··· |
| The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And toss them quickly in the tangled mass | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And Cyril coming through the bramble-track | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| A prize bunch of bananas on his back; | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| And Georgie--none could ever dive like him-- | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Throwing his scanty clothes off for a swim; | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| And schoolboys, from Bridge-tunnel going home, | 10 | ·/···/˘/˘· |
| Watching the waters downward dash and foam. | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| This is no daytime dream, there’s something in it, | 11 | ···/···/˘·· |
| Oh something’s happening there this very minute! | 11 | ·/˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
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.