Child Moon
The child's wonderAt the old moonComes back nightly.She points her fingerTo the far silent yellow thingShining through the branchesFiltering on the leaves a golden sand,Crying with her little tongue, "See the moon!"And in her bed fading to sleepWith babblings of the moon on her little mouth.
Words in this poem
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Child Moon 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, Child Moon, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/child-moon.html, id L28964.
Form and metre
Child Moon is 10 lines in a single stanza.
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-- wonder · moonA · nightly · finger · thing · branches · sand · moonA · sleep · mouth
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The child's wonder | 4 | ··/˘ |
| At the old moon | 4 | ···· |
| Comes back nightly. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| She points her finger | 5 | ···/˘ |
| To the far silent yellow thing | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Shining through the branches | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| Filtering on the leaves a golden sand, | 10 | /˘˘····/˘· |
| Crying with her little tongue, "See the moon!" | 10 | /˘··/˘···· |
| And in her bed fading to sleep | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| With babblings of the moon on her little mouth. | 12 | ·/˘˘·····/˘· |
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.