Harvesting
Pale sheaves of oats, pocked by untimely rain,Under October skies,Teased and forlorn,Ungathered lie where still the tardy wainComes not to sealThe seasons of the corn,From prime to June, with running barns of grain.
Now time with me is at the middle year,The register of youthIs now to sing ...My thoughts are ripe, my moods are in full ear;That they should failOf harvesting,Uncarried on cold fields, is all my fear.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- wain n.
- A four-wheeled vehicle for the transportation of goods, produce, etc.; a wagon. [OE. wain, AS. wægn; akin to D. & G. wagen, OHG. wagan, Icel. & Sw. vagn, Dan. vogn, and E. way. Way, Weigh, and cf. Wagon.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Harvesting is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Harvesting, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/harvesting.html, id L23141.
Form and metre
Harvesting is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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-BA-BA rainA · skies · forlornB · wainA · seal · cornB · grainA
- 2 A-BA-BA yearA · youth · singB · earA · fail · harvestingB · fearA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Pale sheaves of oats, pocked by untimely rain, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Under October skies, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Teased and forlorn, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Ungathered lie where still the tardy wain | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Comes not to seal | 4 | ···· |
| The seasons of the corn, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| From prime to June, with running barns of grain. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Now time with me is at the middle year, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The register of youth | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Is now to sing ... | 4 | ···· |
| My thoughts are ripe, my moods are in full ear; | 10 | ·········· |
| That they should fail | 4 | ···· |
| Of harvesting, | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| Uncarried on cold fields, is all my fear. | 9 | ········· |
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.