The Broken Field
My soul is a dark ploughed fieldIn the cold rain;My soul is a broken fieldPloughed by pain.
Where grass and bending flowersWere growing,The field lies broken nowFor another sowing.
Great Sower when you treadMy field again,Scatter the furrows thereWith better grain.
Words in this poem
- sower n.
- One who, or that which, sows.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Broken Field 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, The Broken Field, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/the-broken-field.html, id L16980.
Form and metre
The Broken Field is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.3 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 ABAB fieldA · rainB · fieldA · painB
- 2 -A-A flowers · growingA · now · sowingA
- 3 -A-A tread · againA · there · grainA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My soul is a dark ploughed field | 8 | ······˘· |
| In the cold rain; | 4 | ···· |
| My soul is a broken field | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Ploughed by pain. | 3 | ··· |
| Where grass and bending flowers | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Were growing, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| The field lies broken now | 6 | ···/˘· |
| For another sowing. | 6 | ·˘/˘/˘ |
| Great Sower when you tread | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| My field again, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Scatter the furrows there | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| With better grain. | 4 | ·/˘· |
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.