Little Song to a Western Statesman
Well, I'm for you, little worm,Coming to the surface of the ground on warm, wet days,Digging deep down when it is dry and cold—Who elected you to serve in the United States Senate, eh?
Say, you are funny in that black frock coat,Funny as me, with my fat cheeks and brown woven coat too.Where'd we get our clothes?Who made them for us?
You must get serious, now and then,In the night when it is dark and wild winds blow.I do. I weep and pray and have big thoughts.That's what makes life seem so strange and unbelievable to me.You understand, eh?
Words in this poem
- funny a.
- Droll; comical; amusing; laughable. Funny bone. See crazy bone, under Crazy. [From Fun.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Little Song to a Western Statesman 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, Little Song to a Western Statesman, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/little-song-to-a-western-statesman.html, id L29495.
Form and metre
Little Song to a Western Statesman is 13 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Well, I'm for you, little worm, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Coming to the surface of the ground on warm, wet days, | 13 | /˘··/˘······· |
| Digging deep down when it is dry and cold— | 10 | /˘········ |
| Who elected you to serve in the United States Senate, eh? | 16 | ·˘/˘·····˘/˘·/˘· |
| Say, you are funny in that black frock coat, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Funny as me, with my fat cheeks and brown woven coat too. | 14 | /˘········/˘·· |
| Where'd we get our clothes? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Who made them for us? | 5 | ····· |
| You must get serious, now and then, | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| In the night when it is dark and wild winds blow. | 11 | ··········· |
| I do. I weep and pray and have big thoughts. | 10 | ·········· |
| That's what makes life seem so strange and unbelievable to me. | 15 | ·········˘/˘˘·· |
| You understand, eh? | 5 | ··˘/· |
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.