Like barley bending In low fields by the sea, Singing in hard wind Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending And rising again, So would I, unbroken, Rise from pain;
So would I softly, Day long, night long, Change my sorrow Into song.
In these lines, the speaker watches barley bending in coastal fields under a hard wind and sees a model for how she wants to live. The barley is battered but not destroyed; it leans, sings in the wind, and then rises again. The bending is not weakness but a way of surviving the gale.
Read the full summary