Song to the Sap
In my breast the sap of spring,In my brain grey winter, bleak and hard,Through my whole being, surging strong and sure,The call of gods,The forward push of mystery and of life.
Men, sweaty men, who walk on frozen roads,Or stand and listen by the factory door,Look up, men!Stand hard!On winds the gods sweep down.
In denser shadows by the factory walls,In my old cornfields, broken where the cattle roam,The shadow of the face of God falls down.
From all of Mid-America a prayer,To newer, braver gods, to dawns and days,To truth and cleaner, braver life we come.Lift up a song,My sweaty men,Lift up a song.
Words in this poem
- sweaty a.
- Moist with sweat; as, a sweaty skin; a sweaty garment.
- cleaner n.
- One who, or that which, cleans.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song to the Sap 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 the Sap, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/song-to-the-sap.html, id L29478.
Form and metre
Song to the Sap is 19 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ---A-A prayer · days · come · songA · men · 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 |
|---|---|---|
| In my breast the sap of spring, | 7 | ······· |
| In my brain grey winter, bleak and hard, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Through my whole being, surging strong and sure, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The call of gods, | 4 | ···· |
| The forward push of mystery and of life. | 11 | ·/˘··/˘˘··· |
| Men, sweaty men, who walk on frozen roads, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Or stand and listen by the factory door, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘˘· |
| Look up, men! | 3 | ··· |
| Stand hard! | 2 | ·· |
| On winds the gods sweep down. | 6 | ······ |
| In denser shadows by the factory walls, | 11 | ·/˘/···/˘˘· |
| In my old cornfields, broken where the cattle roam, | 12 | ···///˘··/˘· |
| The shadow of the face of God falls down. | 10 | ·/········ |
| From all of Mid-America a prayer, | 10 | ····˘/˘˘·· |
| To newer, braver gods, to dawns and days, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| To truth and cleaner, braver life we come. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Lift up a song, | 4 | ···· |
| My sweaty men, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Lift up a song. | 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.