Spring Song
In the forest, amid old trees and wet dead leaves, a shrine.Men on the wet leaves kneeling.The spirit of God in the air above a shrine.
Now, America, you press your lips to mine,Feel on your lips the throbbing of my blood.Christ, come to life and life calling,Sweet and strong.
Spring. God in the air above old fields.Farmers marking fields for the planting of the corn.Fields marked for corn to stand in long straight aisles.
In the spring I press your body down on wet cold new-plowed ground.Men, give your souls to me.I would have my sacred way with you.
In the forest, amid old trees and wet dead leaves, a shrine.Men rising from the kneeling place to sing.Everywhere in the fields now the orderly planting of corn.
Words in this poem
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Spring 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, Spring Song, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/spring-song.html, id L29462.
Form and metre
Spring Song is 16 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 A-A shrineA · kneeling · shrineA
- 2 --AA mine · blood · callingA · strongA
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 the forest, amid old trees and wet dead leaves, a shrine. | 14 | ··/˘˘/········ |
| Men on the wet leaves kneeling. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The spirit of God in the air above a shrine. | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| Now, America, you press your lips to mine, | 11 | ·˘/˘˘······ |
| Feel on your lips the throbbing of my blood. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Christ, come to life and life calling, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Sweet and strong. | 3 | ··· |
| Spring. God in the air above old fields. | 9 | ········· |
| Farmers marking fields for the planting of the corn. | 12 | /˘/˘···/˘··· |
| Fields marked for corn to stand in long straight aisles. | 10 | ·········· |
| In the spring I press your body down on wet cold new-plowed ground. | 15 | ······/˘······· |
| Men, give your souls to me. | 6 | ······ |
| I would have my sacred way with you. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| In the forest, amid old trees and wet dead leaves, a shrine. | 14 | ··/˘˘/········ |
| Men rising from the kneeling place to sing. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Everywhere in the fields now the orderly planting of corn. | 15 | /˘······/˘˘/˘·· |
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.