Out in the Garden
Out in the garden,Out in the windy, swinging dark,Under the trees and over the flower-beds,Over the grass and under the hedge border,Someone is sweeping, sweeping,Some old gardener.Out in the windy, swinging dark,Someone is secretly putting in order,Someone is creeping, creeping.
Words in this poem
- gardener n.
- One who makes and tends a garden; a horticulturist.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Out in the Garden is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59276; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Katherine Mansfield, Out in the Garden, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/out-in-the-garden.html, id L27608.
Form and metre
Out in the Garden is 9 lines in a single stanza.
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-BC-ABC garden · darkA · beds · borderB · sweepingC · gardener · darkA · orderB · creepingC
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Out in the garden, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Out in the windy, swinging dark, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Under the trees and over the flower-beds, | 9 | ·······/· |
| Over the grass and under the hedge border, | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Someone is sweeping, sweeping, | 7 | /··/˘/˘ |
| Some old gardener. | 5 | ··/˘˘ |
| Out in the windy, swinging dark, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Someone is secretly putting in order, | 10 | /··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Someone is creeping, creeping. | 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.