War
Long lanes of fire, dead cornstalks burning,Run now—head downward—plunging and crying,Hold hard the breath now,Forward we run.
Out of Nebraska, on into Kansas, now the word runs,Runs with the wind, runs with the news of war, crying and screaming.Now the word runs.
Out on low ridges, black 'gainst the night sky;Farmer boys running, factory boys running;Boys from OhioAnd my Illinois.
Questions and answers, over the land,Questions that hurt, answers that hurt,Questions of courageThat cannot but hurt.
Deep in the cornfields the gods come to life,Gods that have waited, gods that we knew not.Gods come to lifeIn America now.
Words in this poem
- kansas n.
- A tribe of Indians allied to the Winnebagoes and Osages. They formerly inhabited the region which is now the State of Kansas, but were removed to the Indian Territory.
- screaming a.
- Uttering screams; shrieking.
- illinois n.
- A tribe of North American Indians, which formerly occupied the region between the Wabash and Mississippi rivers.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
War 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, War, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/war.html, id L29491.
Form and metre
War is 19 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.
- 2 A-A runsA · screaming · runsA
- 4 -A-A land · hurtA · courage · hurtA
- 5 A-A- lifeA · not · lifeA · now
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Long lanes of fire, dead cornstalks burning, | 10 | ···/˘·/·/˘ |
| Run now—head downward—plunging and crying, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Hold hard the breath now, | 5 | ····· |
| Forward we run. | 4 | /˘·· |
| Out of Nebraska, on into Kansas, now the word runs, | 14 | ··˘/˘···/˘···· |
| Runs with the wind, runs with the news of war, crying and screaming. | 15 | ··········/˘·/˘ |
| Now the word runs. | 4 | ···· |
| Out on low ridges, black 'gainst the night sky; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Farmer boys running, factory boys running; | 11 | /˘·/˘/˘˘·/˘ |
| Boys from Ohio | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| And my Illinois. | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Questions and answers, over the land, | 9 | /˘·/˘···· |
| Questions that hurt, answers that hurt, | 8 | /˘··/˘·· |
| Questions of courage | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| That cannot but hurt. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Deep in the cornfields the gods come to life, | 10 | ···//····· |
| Gods that have waited, gods that we knew not. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Gods come to life | 4 | ···· |
| In America now. | 6 | ·˘/˘˘· |
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.