And They Obey
Smash down the cities.Knock the walls to pieces.Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homesInto loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood:You are the soldiers and we command you.
Build up the cities.Set up the walls again.Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homesInto buildings for life and labor:You are workmen and citizens all: We command you.
Words in this poem
- smash v. t.
- To break in pieces by violence; to dash to pieces; to crush. [Cf. Sw. smisk a blow, stroke, smiska to strike, dial. Sw. smaske to kiss with a noise, and E. smack a loud kiss, a slap.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
And They Obey is in the public domain. This text is taken from Chicago Poems, Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Carl Sandburg, And They Obey, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/and-they-obey.html, id L28923.
Form and metre
And They Obey is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Smash down the cities. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Knock the walls to pieces. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes | 14 | ··/˘˘·˘/˘/·˘·· |
| Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood: | 13 | ·······/˘···· |
| You are the soldiers and we command you. | 10 | ···/˘··˘/· |
| Build up the cities. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Set up the walls again. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes | 19 | ·˘/˘···/˘˘·˘/˘/·˘·· |
| Into buildings for life and labor: | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| You are workmen and citizens all: We command you. | 13 | ··/˘·/˘˘··˘/· |
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.