Salvo
Thin rift in time,A wedge of time, forever driven deep 'twixt days and nights,A moment only—all winds suspended and all day-dreams stopped,The clock upon the wall a dreary lie,Then death to that and me.
By a chair a woman and a pair of eyes—eyes luminous and sure.No word spoken.Love leaping, whispering, clamoring, crying,Love making time halt and creating me.
Now my old city sees me pick my burden up.All sweet dreams fade.Words, musical and dear, will ne'er be spoken now.I follow plows that mark my furrows through the world.
Now you watch me, brothers,Men and boys and new-made wives.Hear with glowing wonder the story of my ways.The burden from my back I pass to you.I go my way, unburdened and alone.
Out of the West and East men came to look at me.Eyes gleamed in darkness and the world was pure.Grown old by wondrous looks and dreaming out of timeI pass and do not come to life again.
Words in this poem
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Salvo 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, Salvo, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/salvo.html, id L29464.
Form and metre
Salvo is 22 lines in 5 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.
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 ---AA time · nights · stopped · lieA · meA
- 4 A-A-- brothersA · wives · waysA · you · alone
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thin rift in time, | 4 | ···· |
| A wedge of time, forever driven deep 'twixt days and nights, | 14 | ····˘/˘/˘····· |
| A moment only—all winds suspended and all day-dreams stopped, | 15 | ·/˘/˘··˘/˘····· |
| The clock upon the wall a dreary lie, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Then death to that and me. | 6 | ······ |
| By a chair a woman and a pair of eyes—eyes luminous and sure. | 17 | ····/˘······/˘˘·· |
| No word spoken. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Love leaping, whispering, clamoring, crying, | 11 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Love making time halt and creating me. | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Now my old city sees me pick my burden up. | 12 | ···/˘····/˘· |
| All sweet dreams fade. | 4 | ···· |
| Words, musical and dear, will ne'er be spoken now. | 12 | ·/˘˘·····/˘· |
| I follow plows that mark my furrows through the world. | 12 | ·/˘····/˘··· |
| Now you watch me, brothers, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Men and boys and new-made wives. | 7 | ······· |
| Hear with glowing wonder the story of my ways. | 12 | ··/˘/˘·/˘··· |
| The burden from my back I pass to you. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I go my way, unburdened and alone. | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| Out of the West and East men came to look at me. | 12 | ············ |
| Eyes gleamed in darkness and the world was pure. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Grown old by wondrous looks and dreaming out of time | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| I pass and do not come to life again. | 10 | ········˘/ |
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.