The Pasture
I'M going out to clean the pasture spring;I'll only stop to rake the leaves away(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.I'm going out to fetch the little calfThat's standing by the mother. It's so young,It totters when she licks it with her tongue.I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.
About this text
The Pasture is in the public domain. This text is taken from North of Boston, Project Gutenberg ebook #3026; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Frost, The Pasture, in North of Boston (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3026, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-north-of-boston/the-pasture.html, id L04602.
Form and metre
The Pasture is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 -AAB-CCB spring · awayA · mayA · tooB · calf · youngC · tongueC · tooB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I'M going out to clean the pasture spring; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| I'll only stop to rake the leaves away | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too. | 8 | ········ |
| I'm going out to fetch the little calf | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| That's standing by the mother. It's so young, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| It totters when she licks it with her tongue. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too. | 8 | ········ |
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.