Song to New Song
Over my city Chicago a singer arises to sing.I greet thee, hoarse and terrible singer, half man, half bird, strong, winged one.I see you float in cold bleak winds,
Your wings burned by the fires of furnaces,In all your cries so little that is beautiful,Only the fact that you have risen out of the din and roar to float and wait and point the way to song.
Back of your grim city, singer, the long flat fields.Corn that stands up in orderly rows, full of purpose.As you float and wait, uttering your hoarse criesI see new beauties in the standing corn,And dream of singers yet to come,When you and your rude kind, choked by the fury of your furnaces,Have fallen dead upon this coal heap here.
Kneeling in prayer I shall forget you not, grim singer,Black bird, black against your black smoke-laden sky,Uttering your hoarse and terrible cries,The while you do strive to catch and understandThe faint and long forgotten quality of song,By never sweeter singers to be sung.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song to New 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, Song to New Song, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/song-to-new-song.html, id L29474.
Form and metre
Song to New Song is 19 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.
- 3 --A--A- fields · purpose · criesA · corn · come · furnacesA · here
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Over my city Chicago a singer arises to sing. | 16 | ···/˘˘/··/˘˘/˘·· |
| I greet thee, hoarse and terrible singer, half man, half bird, strong, winged one. | 17 | ·····/˘˘/˘······· |
| I see you float in cold bleak winds, | 8 | ········ |
| Your wings burned by the fires of furnaces, | 11 | ·····/˘·/˘˘ |
| In all your cries so little that is beautiful, | 12 | ·····/˘··/˘˘ |
| Only the fact that you have risen out of the din and roar to float and wait and point the way to song. | 25 | /˘·····/˘················ |
| Back of your grim city, singer, the long flat fields. | 12 | ····/˘/˘···· |
| Corn that stands up in orderly rows, full of purpose. | 13 | ·····/˘˘···/˘ |
| As you float and wait, uttering your hoarse cries | 11 | ·····/˘˘··· |
| I see new beauties in the standing corn, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And dream of singers yet to come, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| When you and your rude kind, choked by the fury of your furnaces, | 16 | ·········/˘··/˘˘ |
| Have fallen dead upon this coal heap here. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Kneeling in prayer I shall forget you not, grim singer, | 13 | /˘····˘/···/˘ |
| Black bird, black against your black smoke-laden sky, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Uttering your hoarse and terrible cries, | 10 | /˘˘···/˘˘· |
| The while you do strive to catch and understand | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| The faint and long forgotten quality of song, | 12 | ····˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| By never sweeter singers to be sung. | 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.