Song of the Singer
Drunken and staggering—Saying all profane things—Kissing your hands to the gods—In the night praying and whimpering—Aching to sing and not singing—You—My brother.
Beating upon it with fists—Trying to shake it off—Hoping and dreaming you will emerge—My sister.
I wrap my arms about you that hunger.In the long hair of my breast there is warmth.I look far into the future beyond the noise and the clatter.I will not be crushed by the iron machine.
Sing.Dare to sing.Kiss the mouth of song with your lips.In the morning and in the eveningTrust to the terrible strength of indomitable song.
Words in this poem
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- clatter v. i.
- To make a rattling sound by striking hard bodies together; to make a succession of abrupt, rattling sounds. [AS. cla a rattle, akin to D. klateren to rattle. Cf. Clack.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song of the Singer 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, Song of the Singer, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/song-of-the-singer.html, id L29500.
Form and metre
Song of the Singer is 20 lines in 4 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.
- 4 AA-AA singA · singA · lips · eveningA · songA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drunken and staggering— | 6 | /˘·/˘˘ |
| Saying all profane things— | 6 | /˘·˘/· |
| Kissing your hands to the gods— | 7 | /˘····· |
| In the night praying and whimpering— | 9 | ···/˘·/˘˘ |
| Aching to sing and not singing— | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| You— | 1 | · |
| My brother. | 3 | ·/˘ |
| Beating upon it with fists— | 7 | /˘····· |
| Trying to shake it off— | 6 | /˘···· |
| Hoping and dreaming you will emerge— | 9 | /˘·/˘··˘/ |
| My sister. | 3 | ·/˘ |
| I wrap my arms about you that hunger. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| In the long hair of my breast there is warmth. | 10 | ·········· |
| I look far into the future beyond the noise and the clatter. | 16 | ······/˘······/˘ |
| I will not be crushed by the iron machine. | 11 | ·······/˘˘/ |
| Sing. | 1 | · |
| Dare to sing. | 3 | ··· |
| Kiss the mouth of song with your lips. | 8 | ········ |
| In the morning and in the evening | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Trust to the terrible strength of indomitable song. | 14 | ···/˘˘··˘/˘˘˘· |
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.