New Corn
Swiftly the years, beyond recall.Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.I will clothe myself in spring-clothingAnd visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.By the mountain-stream a mist hovers,Hovers a moment, then scatters.There comes a wind blowing from the southThat brushes the fields of new corn.
Words in this poem
- stillness n.
- The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
New Corn is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, New Corn, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/new-corn.html, id L18789.
Form and metre
New Corn is 8 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 81% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.9 syllables. 4 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 tetrameter.
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.
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Swiftly the years, beyond recall. | 8 | /˘····/· |
| Solemn the stillness of this fair morning. | 10 | /˘·/˘···/˘ |
| I will clothe myself in spring-clothing | 9 | ····/··/˘ |
| And visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| By the mountain-stream a mist hovers, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Hovers a moment, then scatters. | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| There comes a wind blowing from the south | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| That brushes the fields of new corn. | 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.