"Like Barley Bending"
Like barley bendingIn low fields by the sea,Singing in hard windCeaselessly;
Like barley bendingAnd rising again,So would I, unbroken,Rise from pain;
So would I softly,Day long, night long,Change my sorrowInto song.
About this text
"Like Barley Bending" is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, "Like Barley Bending", in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/like-barley-bending.html, id L20809.
Form and metre
"Like Barley Bending" is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in trochaic 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.
- 2 -AAA bending · againA · unbrokenA · painA
- 3 -A-A softly · longA · sorrow · songA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Like barley bending | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| In low fields by the sea, | 6 | ······ |
| Singing in hard wind | 5 | /˘··· |
| Ceaselessly; | 3 | /˘˘ |
| Like barley bending | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| And rising again, | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
| So would I, unbroken, | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| Rise from pain; | 3 | ··· |
| So would I softly, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Day long, night long, | 4 | ···· |
| Change my sorrow | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Into song. | 3 | ··· |
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.