Down Home
Down home to-night the moonshine fallsAcross a hill with daisies pied,The pear tree by the garden gateBeckons with white arms like a bride.
A savor as of trampled fernAlong the whispering meadow stirs,And, beacon of immortal love,A light is shining through the firs.
To my old gable window creepsThe night wind with a sigh and song,And, weaving ancient sorceries,Thereto the gleeful moonbeams throng.
Beside the open kitchen doorMy mother stands all lovingly,And o'er the pathways of the darkShe sends a yearning thought to me.
It seeks and finds my answering heartWhich shall no more be peace-possessedUntil I reach her empty armsAnd lay my head upon her breast.
Words in this poem
- moonshine n.
- The light of the moon.
- gable n.
- A cable. Chapman.
- gleeful a.
- Merry; gay; joyous.
- lovingly adv.
- With love; affectionately.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Down Home is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, Down Home, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/down-home.html, id L29417.
Form and metre
Down Home is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 falls · piedA · gate · brideA
- 2 -A-A fern · stirsA · love · firsA
- 3 -A-A creeps · songA · sorceries · throngA
- 5 -A-A heart · possessedA · arms · breastA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Down home to-night the moonshine falls | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Across a hill with daisies pied, | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| The pear tree by the garden gate | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Beckons with white arms like a bride. | 8 | /˘······ |
| A savor as of trampled fern | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Along the whispering meadow stirs, | 8 | ˘/·/˘/·· |
| And, beacon of immortal love, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| A light is shining through the firs. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To my old gable window creeps | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The night wind with a sigh and song, | 8 | ········ |
| And, weaving ancient sorceries, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Thereto the gleeful moonbeams throng. | 8 | ˘/·/˘/·· |
| Beside the open kitchen door | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| My mother stands all lovingly, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| And o'er the pathways of the dark | 8 | ···/···· |
| She sends a yearning thought to me. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| It seeks and finds my answering heart | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Which shall no more be peace-possessed | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Until I reach her empty arms | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And lay my head upon her breast. | 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.