The Full Text of “Homecoming”
The Full Text of “Homecoming”
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“Homecoming” Introduction
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"Homecoming" is a short poem by the American poet Langston Hughes, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. The poem describes a homecoming that's anything but joyful: instead of returning to a happy scene, the poem's speaker walks through the door to find their lover, and all of her things, gone. The poem illustrates how the pain of heartbreak can transform a warm, familiar space into nothing but a lonely, alienating "room." Hughes first published "Homecoming" in 1949.
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“Homecoming” Summary
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The speaker describes walking through an alleyway up to their home and opening the door only to discover that all of their lover's clothes were missing. The speaker's beloved herself was gone, too.
The speaker pulled back the blankets to unmake the bed (i.e., to get the bed ready for sleep). All the speaker had left in their lover's absense was a big, empty room.
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“Homecoming” Themes
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The Pain of Lost Love
Langston Hughes's "Homecoming" explores the pain of lost love, illustrating how heartbreak can make familiar surroundings seem disorienting and strange. A "homecoming" is usually a happy occasion, a return to a place of love and affection. After being left by their beloved, however, the speaker's home now seems remarkably cold and empty. Love, the poem implies, is part of what makes home a home; lost love, it follows, can sap a home of its warmth and comfort.
The poem doesn't go into specifics about what happened to the speaker’s lover. It's not clear if she died or simply packed up her bags and left. All the reader learns is that the speaker lived with a woman who is no longer there: the speaker opens the door to find “She wasn’t home no more.”
A homecoming is meant to be a joyful experience, a reunion with loved ones. Now, though, the speaker is confronted by this lover’s absence. The woman's possessions once filled the house, but now "All her clothes [are] gone." The fact that the speaker notices this immediately suggests the rawness of their heartbreak and the striking, painful emptiness of the speaker's surroundings. The bed, once, a place of love and intimacy, is empty. The step-by-step way in which the speaker gets into bed—"I pulled back the covers, I made down the bed"—further suggests the sudden strangeness of this once familiar object. Nothing is as it should be.
Without this woman, the speaker has nothing but "A whole lot of room"—a vast space that seems only to make this newfound loneliness worse. The love the couple shared, the poem implies, is what made their home a home. The poem's title, then, is ironic. This isn't the same home that the speaker once knew, even if it is physically the same place.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-8
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Homecoming”
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Lines 1-2
I went back ...
... up my door.The poem's title, "Homecoming," might prime readers to expect a happy celebration, one in which the speaker is greeted by loved ones after time away. The poem itself then drops the reader right into the action, following its first-person speaker as they make their way through an "alley" towards their door.
The mention of an "alley" suggests that the speaker lives in a city. Apart from that, readers don't get much contextual information; it's unclear if the speaker has been away for some time, or if they're simply heading home from work.
Either way, the straightforward, repetitive language of these opening lines creates a sense of building suspense. The lines begin with anaphora ("I"), while the "I did this, I did that" approach in each line makes the poem feel like it unfolds in real time, step by painful step.
Note, too, that each line here is grammatically complete. This neat, end-stopped pattern continues throughout the poem. Already, perhaps, it feels as though the speaker is resisting any urge to make this experience overtly poetic or dramatic.
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Lines 3-4
All her clothes ...
... home no more. -
Lines 5-6
I pulled back ...
... down the bed. -
Lines 7-8
A ...
... thing I had.
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“Homecoming” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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End-Stopped Line
Almost every line in "Homecoming" is end-stopped, coming to a clear pause. This insistent end-stopping has a few effects.
For one thing, it slows the poem down, creating a plodding pace. It sounds as though the speaker is describing their "homecoming" in real-time: moment by moment, step by step. Those firm pauses even suggest that the speaker wants to delay the inevitable confrontation with the fact that they're now alone.
End-stopping also adds to the poem's matter-of-fact tone. The speaker relays their tale with authority and an air of stark finality. Listen to lines 3 and 4, for example:
All her clothes was gone:
She wasn't home no more.The speaker is simply relaying two basic observations, but the spare diction and end-stopping make it almost seem as though the speaker is in disbelief.
There is one enjambment in the poem, which stands out clearly against the backdrop of all this end-stopping. The poem's final two lines bleed into each other:
A whole lot of room
Was the only thing I had.Line 7 extends into the blankness of the page before sweeping across to the next time, conveying the overwhelming weight of the speaker's sudden loneliness.
Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:- Lines 1-6
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Parallelism
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Parataxis
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"Homecoming" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Alley
- Made Down the Bed
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “I went back the alley”)
A narrow passageway.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Homecoming”
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Form
"Homecoming" is a short poem consisting of two quatrains (a.k.a. four-line stanzas). Short, clipped statements and spare, repetitive language make the poem feel simple and straightforward, but this simplicity doesn't mean that "Homecoming" lacks an emotional punch. On the contrary, the poem's bare form means there's little there to distract readers from the speaker's heartbreak and loneliness. The spareness of the language reflects the sudden emptiness of the speaker's home.
It's worth noting, too, that each line up until the last two forms a full grammatical phrase: lines 1-6 are firmly end-stopped. The sudden stretching out of the last two lines though enjambment mirrors the speaker's realization that now all they have is "a whole lot of room."
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Meter
"Homecoming" uses an accentual meter. Each line contains three stressed beats, though the number of unstressed beats varies.
That said, many of the lines fall into a relatively iambic rhythm (an iamb being a poetic foot with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern: da-DUM). As such, readers might consider the poem to be written in a very loose iambic trimeter: lines of three iambs in a row.
Again, this meter is far from strict. Take lines 2-4. Line 2 starts with an anapest (da-da-DUM) in the first foot, while line 3 skips its first unstressed syllable (a form of catalexis). Line 4 then falls into perfect iambic trimeter:
And I o- | pened up | my door.
All | her clothes | was gone:
She was- | n't home | no more.Line 4 is the only perfectly iambic line in the poem.
The use of parallel phrasing means that many lines follow the same rhythm, even if it's not always iambic. Take lines 1 and 5:
I went | back the | alley
[...]
I pulled | back the | coversLines 6 and 7 feature almost exactly the same pattern; they just have five syllables instead of six, cutting off that final unstressed beat (they go, "da-DUM | DUM-da | da-DUM"). Technically, readers could call these rough iambic trimeter as well, in which the second foot is replaced by a trochee (DUM-da, as in "back the").
However characterize them, the repetitive rhythm adds to the poem's stark, downtrodden feel. It's as though the speaker is being confronted by their loneliness in the same way, over and over again.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Homecoming" follows a rhyme scheme of ABCB DEFE. In other words, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme with each together, while the first and third lines do not.
There is a difference between the rhyming pairs in the first and second stanzas, however. Listen to how neatly the rhymes link up in lines 2 and 4:
And I opened up my door.
[...]
She wasn't home no more.These are perfect rhymes. The rhymes in the next stanza are not:
I made down the bed.
[...]
Was the only thing I had.The speaker disrupts the rhyme scheme by using a slant rhyme here, denying readers the satisfying click of a full rhyme. The rhyme pair has been broken, mirroring the speaker's loss of their beloved.
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“Homecoming” Speaker
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The speaker of "Homecoming" is someone who comes home to find that their lover is no longer there. It's not clear if she has left the speaker or if she has died (though the former seems like the more likely option, given that she has apparently packed up her clothes).
Readers don't learn much else about the speaker themselves—not their name, age, job, or gender. What readers do know is that this person feels dumbfounded and heartbroken. The speaker explains what happened when they got home in plain, straightforward language, as though they're struggling to come to terms with their newfound reality. The speaker's relative anonymity makes the people feel more universal, appealing to anyone who has experienced deep heartbreak.
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“Homecoming” Setting
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As the title implies, the poem takes place in and around the speaker's home just as the speaker is returning from some time away. The speaker begins the poem walking down "the alley," suggesting that this home is located in a city (perhaps in Harlem, where Langston Hughes lived). Saying "the alley," as opposed to the vaguer "an alley," conveys a sense of familiarity, as does "my door."
Once inside the actual home, though, the poem's setting becomes cold and strange. The speaker doesn't describe the home itself, only noting what it lacks: the speaker's beloved. Now that she's gone, the speaker is left with nothing but a "whole lot of room."
This home—presumably once a place of comfort and warmth—has become lonely and empty, a reminder of the speaker's heartache and isolation. Love, the poem implies, is what makes a home a real home—and taking it away fills the same place with despair.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Homecoming”
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Literary Context
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance, an early-20th-century artistic, intellectual, and social movement centered in the largely Black Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Along with other leaders of the movement such as Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen, Hughes brought unprecedented national and international attention to the rich variety of Black American life and art. At a time when many European and white American poets (including Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot) were writing dense, highly allusive poems, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance gave readers an elegant, accessible look into the everyday experience of Black Americans.
"Homecoming" was first published in 1949, shortly before Hughes released his seminal collection, Montage of a Dream Deferred. The poem originally included a third stanza:
Little old empty bed, Lord!
Little old empty room!
Little old empty heart, Lord!
Might as well by my tomb!Hughes removed this stanza by the time the poem appeared in his 1958 Selected Poems.
Hughes's poetry is closely associated with the dreams and realities of Black Americans in particular, as well as the broader problem of the "American Dream." It profoundly influenced many marginalized writers during and after Hughes's lifetime, among them playwright Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (some of whose speeches drew on phrases and ideas in Hughes's work).
Hughes was also strongly influenced by the musical scene in Harlem and was one of the innovators of "jazz poetry," infusing his writing with the rhythms of jazz, ragtime, and the blues. His innovations in poetic sound and form, his memorable evocations of Black life, and his searching reflections on race in America continue to influence poets around the world.
Historical Context
Due in part to the dramatic segregation in Southern states in the decades after the Civil War, many Black Americans left the South for the North in the early part of the 20th century. This mass movement became known as the Great Migration, and it produced concentrated hubs of Black life in many northern cities.
The most prominent of these was Harlem, which became the heart of Black American culture in New York City and the nation as a whole. In the 1920s, when Hughes first lived and worked there, Harlem was a thriving cultural center, with a rich nightlife, music scene (dominated by ragtime, jazz, and the blues), and literary community. Black Americans owned and operated successful businesses, and the neighborhood gave rise to economic growth, social progress, and artistic experimentation.
Hughes wrote "Homecoming" after the height of the Harlem Renaissance, however, in the late 1940s. By this time, thousands of Black American soldiers had returned after fighting on behalf of their country in World War II. They'd often faced better treatment in Allied countries abroad than they did at home, where they continued to endure intense segregation, disenfranchisement, and racism.
Pervasive voter suppression and violence also effectively denied Black Americans the right to vote. This meant that even though Black soldiers had risked their lives for their country, they were denied fair representation and, in turn, the kind of freedom that the United States was supposedly fighting to uphold abroad. During WWII, Hughes was an activist on behalf of the Double V campaign, which highlighted this hypocrisy while striving for racial equality.
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More “Homecoming” Resources
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External Resources
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Hughes's Life and Work — Read a short biography of Hughes from the Poetry Foundation.
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"The Elusive Langston Hughes" — Read an article by writer and critic Hilton Als about Hughes's careful public persona and the complex, real person behind the poems.
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The Harlem Renaissance — Read an introduction to the Harlem Renaissance, a groundbreaking cultural movement of which Hughes was an integral part.
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A Hughes Documentary — Watch a 2002 film about Hughes's life.
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Jazz Poetry — Learn more about the innovate form Hughes helped pioneer.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes
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