Returning to the Fields
When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd:My only love was for the hills and mountains.Unwitting I fell into the Web of the World’s dustAnd was not free until my thirtieth year.The migrant bird longs for the old wood:The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool.I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern MoorAnd, still rustic, I returned to field and garden.My ground covers no more than ten acres:My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms.Elms and willows cluster by the eaves:Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall.Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men.Steady the smoke of the half-deserted village,A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes,A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree.At gate and courtyard--no murmur of the World’s dust:In the empty rooms--leisure and deep stillness.Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage:Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.
Words in this poem
- unwitting a.
- Not knowing; unconscious; ignorant.
- thirtieth a.
- Next in order after the twenty-ninth; the tenth after the twentieth; -- the ordinal of thirty; as, the thirtieth day of the month. [From Thirty: cf. AS. þritigoedha.]
- migrant a.
- Migratory. Sir T. Browne. [L. migrans, p. pr. of migrare. See Migrate.]
- hazy a.
- Thick with haze; somewhat obscured with haze; not clear or transparent. [From Haze, n.]
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
- 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
Returning to the Fields 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, Returning to the Fields, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/returning-to-the-fields.html, id L18786.
Form and metre
Returning to the Fields is 20 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 70%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.0 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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--- herd · mountains · dustA · year · wood · pool · moor · garden · acres · rooms · eaves · hall · men · village · lanes · tree · dustA · stillness · cage · freedom
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd: | 12 | ············ |
| My only love was for the hills and mountains. | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Unwitting I fell into the Web of the World’s dust | 13 | ˘/˘·········· |
| And was not free until my thirtieth year. | 11 | ·······/˘˘· |
| The migrant bird longs for the old wood: | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| The fish in the tank thinks of its native pool. | 11 | ········/˘· |
| I had rescued from wildness a patch of the Southern Moor | 14 | ··/˘·/˘····/˘· |
| And, still rustic, I returned to field and garden. | 12 | ··/˘·˘/···/˘ |
| My ground covers no more than ten acres: | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| My thatched cottage has eight or nine rooms. | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| Elms and willows cluster by the eaves: | 9 | ··/·/˘··· |
| Peach trees and plum trees grow before the Hall. | 10 | ·········· |
| Hazy, hazy the distant hamlets of men. | 11 | /˘/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Steady the smoke of the half-deserted village, | 12 | /˘·····˘/˘/˘ |
| A dog barks somewhere in the deep lanes, | 9 | ···/····· |
| A cock crows at the top of the mulberry tree. | 12 | ········/·˘· |
| At gate and courtyard--no murmur of the World’s dust: | 12 | ···/··/˘···· |
| In the empty rooms--leisure and deep stillness. | 11 | ··/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage: | 10 | ·········· |
| Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom. | 12 | ····˘/·/˘·/˘ |
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.