The Good Earth
The smell of burning weedsUpon the twilight air;The piping of the frogsFrom meadows wet and bare;
A presence in the wood,And in my blood a stir;In all the ardent earthNo failure or demur.
O spring wind, sweet with loveAnd tender with desire,Pour into veins of mineYour pure, impassioned fire.
O waters running freeWith full, exultant song,Give me, for outworn dream,Life that is clean and strong.
O good Earth, warm with youth,My childhood heart renew.Make me elate, sincere,Simple and glad, as you.
O springing things of green,O waiting things of bloom,O winging things of air,Your lordship now resume.
Words in this poem
- piping a.
- Playing on a musical pipe. [From Pipe, v.]
- demur v. i.
- To linger; to stay; to tarry. [OF. demurer, demorer, demourer, to linger, stay, F. demeurer, fr. L. demorari; de- + morari to delay, tarry, stay, mora delay; prob. originally, time for thinki]
- impassioned p. p.
- Actuated or characterized by passion or zeal; showing warmth of feeling; ardent; animated; excited; as, an impassioned orator or discourse.
- exultant a.
- Inclined to exult; characterized by, or expressing, exultation; rejoicing triumphantly. [L. exsultans, exsultantis, p. pr. of exsultare. See Exult.]
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
- elate a.
- Lifted up; raised; elevated. [L. elatus elevated, fig., elated, proud (the figure, perh., being borrowed from a prancing horse); e out + latus (used as p. p. of ferre to bear), for tlatus, a]
- resume n.
- A summing up; a condensed statement; an abridgment or brief recapitulation. [F. See Resume.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Good Earth is in the public domain. This text is taken from New Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59897; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles G. D. Roberts, The Good Earth, in New Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59897, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/roberts-new-poems/the-good-earth.html, id L11126.
Form and metre
The Good Earth is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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-A weeds · airA · frogs · bareA
- 2 -A-A wood · stirA · earth · demurA
- 3 -A-A love · desireA · mine · fireA
- 4 -A-A free · songA · dream · strongA
- 5 -A-A youth · renewA · sincere · youA
- 6 -A-A green · bloomA · air · resumeA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The smell of burning weeds | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Upon the twilight air; | 6 | ···/·· |
| The piping of the frogs | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| From meadows wet and bare; | 6 | ·/···· |
| A presence in the wood, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And in my blood a stir; | 6 | ······ |
| In all the ardent earth | 6 | ···/˘· |
| No failure or demur. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| O spring wind, sweet with love | 6 | ······ |
| And tender with desire, | 7 | ·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Pour into veins of mine | 6 | ······ |
| Your pure, impassioned fire. | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| O waters running free | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| With full, exultant song, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Give me, for outworn dream, | 6 | ······ |
| Life that is clean and strong. | 6 | ······ |
| O good Earth, warm with youth, | 6 | ······ |
| My childhood heart renew. | 6 | ·/··˘/ |
| Make me elate, sincere, | 6 | ··˘/˘/ |
| Simple and glad, as you. | 6 | /˘···· |
| O springing things of green, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| O waiting things of bloom, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| O winging things of air, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Your lordship now resume. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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.