Broadway
I shall never forget you, BroadwayYour golden and calling lights.
I’ll remember you long,Tall-walled river of rush and play.
Hearts that know you hate youAnd lips that have given you laughterHave gone to their ashes of life and its roses,Cursing the dreams that were lostIn the dust of your harsh and trampled stones.
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
Broadway 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, Broadway, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/broadway.html, id L28981.
Form and metre
Broadway is 9 lines in 3 stanzas.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I shall never forget you, Broadway | 9 | ··/˘˘/·/· |
| Your golden and calling lights. | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| I’ll remember you long, | 6 | ·˘/˘·· |
| Tall-walled river of rush and play. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Hearts that know you hate you | 6 | ······ |
| And lips that have given you laughter | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| Have gone to their ashes of life and its roses, | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Cursing the dreams that were lost | 7 | /˘····· |
| In the dust of your harsh and trampled stones. | 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.