A Home Song
I read within a poet's bookA word that starred the page:"Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage!"
Yes, that is true, and something more:You'll find, where'er you roam,That marble floors and gilded wallsCan never make a home.
But every house where Love abides,And Friendship is a guest,Is surely home, and home-sweet-home:For there the heart can rest.
Words in this poem
- starred a.
- Adorned or studded with stars; bespangled. [From Star.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Home Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, A Home Song, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/a-home-song.html, id L22836.
Form and metre
A Home Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 book · pageA · make · cageA
- 2 -A-A more · roamA · walls · homeA
- 3 -A-A abides · guestA · home · restA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I read within a poet's book | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A word that starred the page: | 6 | ······ |
| "Stone walls do not a prison make, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Nor iron bars a cage!" | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Yes, that is true, and something more: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| You'll find, where'er you roam, | 7 | ··˘˘/·· |
| That marble floors and gilded walls | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Can never make a home. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But every house where Love abides, | 9 | ·/˘˘···˘/ |
| And Friendship is a guest, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Is surely home, and home-sweet-home: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For there the heart can rest. | 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.