Analysis of Homeward Bound
Henry Van Dyke 1852 (Germantown, Pennsylvania) – 1933 (Princeton, New Jersey)
Home, for my heart still calls me;
Home, through the danger zone;
Home, whatever befalls me,
I will sail again to my own!
Wolves of the sea are hiding
Closely along the way,
Under the water biding
Their moment to rend and slay.
Black is the eagle that brands them,
Black are their hearts as the night,
Black is the hate that sends them
To murder but not to fight.
Flower of the German Culture,
Boast of the Kaiser's Marine,
Choose for your emblem the vulture,
Cowardly, cruel, obscene!
Forth from her sheltered haven
Our peaceful ship glides slow,
Noiseless in flight as a raven,
Gray as a hoodie crow.
She doubles and turns in her bearing,
Like a twisting plover she goes;
The way of her westward faring
Only the captain knows.
In a lonely bay concealing
She lingers for days, and slips
At dusk from her covert, stealing
Thro' channels feared by the ships.
Brave are the men, and steady,
Who guide her over the deep,--
British mariners, ready
To face the sea-wolf's leap.
Lord of the winds and waters,
Bring our ship to her mark,
Safe from this game of hide-and-seek
With murderers in the dark!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ CKXK CLCL AMAM XNXN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain |
Metre | 1111111 110101 110011 11101111 1101110 100101 1001010 1101101 11010111 1111101 1101111 1101111 10101010 1101001 11110010 1001001 1101010 1010111 1011010 11011 110010010 10101011 01101010 100101 00101010 1101101 11101010 1101101 1101010 1101001 1010010 110111 1101010 1101101 11111101 1100001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,077 |
Words | 202 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 95 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 1:01 min read
- 86 Views
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"Homeward Bound" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18328/homeward-bound>.
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