Sandpiper

While “Sandpiper” is technically free verse, its rhythm and rhyme demonstrate Bishop’s love of formal verse. While the meter is not consistent—the line lengths vary from six syllables to 13 syllables—stresses give the poem a musical quality. For instance, the iambic (pair of syllables that is unstressed-stressed) pattern of “He runs, | he runs” is repeated in Lines 3 and 8. The back-and-forth rhythm of unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables mimics the motion of running.

Every stanza includes the rhyme scheme XAXA. This means that the end words in the second and fourth lines of every stanza rhyme. None of the rhymes are repeated; each stanza has a new rhyme sound. In addition to this consistent rhyme scheme, the second stanza includes a second rhyme, so its rhyme scheme becomes ABAB. This means the end words of the first and third lines rhyme as well as the end words of the second and fourth lines. Notably, the speaker corrects herself in the third stanza, saying that the additional rhyme word is not an accurate portrayal of what the