Rappel D'Amour
Come home, my love, come home!The twilight is falling,The whippoorwill calling,The night is very near,And the darkness full of fear,Come home to my arms, come home!
Come home, my love, come home!In folly we parted,And now, lonely hearted,I know you look in vainFor a love like mine again;Come home to my arms, come home!
Come home, dear love, come home!I've much to forgive you,And more yet to give you.I'll put a little lightIn the window every night,--Come home to my arms, come home.
About this text
Rappel D'Amour 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, Rappel D'Amour, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/rappel-d-amour.html, id L22834.
Form and metre
Rappel D'Amour is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABBCCA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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--BBA homeA · falling · calling · nearB · fearB · homeA
- 2 ABBCCA homeA · partedB · heartedB · vainC · againC · homeA
- 3 ABBCCA homeA · youB · youB · lightC · nightC · homeA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Come home, my love, come home! | 6 | ······ |
| The twilight is falling, | 6 | ·/··/˘ |
| The whippoorwill calling, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| The night is very near, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And the darkness full of fear, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Come home to my arms, come home! | 7 | ······· |
| Come home, my love, come home! | 6 | ······ |
| In folly we parted, | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| And now, lonely hearted, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| I know you look in vain | 6 | ······ |
| For a love like mine again; | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Come home to my arms, come home! | 7 | ······· |
| Come home, dear love, come home! | 6 | ······ |
| I've much to forgive you, | 6 | ···˘/· |
| And more yet to give you. | 6 | ······ |
| I'll put a little light | 6 | ···/˘· |
| In the window every night,-- | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Come home to my arms, come home. | 7 | ······· |
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.