Evening Song
Back of Chicago the open fields—were you ever there?Trains coming toward you out of the West—Streaks of light on the long grey plains?—many a song—Aching to sing.
I've got a grey and ragged brother in my breast—That's a fact.
Back of Chicago the open fields—were you ever there?Trains going from you into the West—Clouds of dust on the long grey plains.Long trains go West, too—in the silenceAlways the song—Waiting to sing.
Words in this poem
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Evening Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Mid-American Chants (New York: John Lane Company; London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1918), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sherwood Anderson, Evening Song, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/evening-song.html, id L29499.
Form and metre
Evening Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Back of Chicago the open fields—were you ever there? | 14 | ··˘/··/˘···/˘· |
| Trains coming toward you out of the West— | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Streaks of light on the long grey plains?—many a song— | 12 | ········/˘·· |
| Aching to sing. | 4 | /˘·· |
| I've got a grey and ragged brother in my breast— | 12 | ·····/˘/˘··· |
| That's a fact. | 3 | ··· |
| Back of Chicago the open fields—were you ever there? | 14 | ··˘/··/˘···/˘· |
| Trains going from you into the West— | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Clouds of dust on the long grey plains. | 8 | ········ |
| Long trains go West, too—in the silence | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Always the song— | 4 | /··· |
| Waiting to sing. | 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.