Choices
They offer you many things,I a few.Moonlight on the play of fountains at nightWith water sparkling a drowsy monotone,Bare-shouldered, smiling women and talkAnd a cross-play of loves and adulteriesAnd a fear of deathand a remembering of regrets:All this they offer you.I come with:salt and breada terrible job of workand tireless war;Come and have now:hunger.dangerand hate.
Words in this poem
- monotone n.
- A single unvaried tone or sound. [See Monotonous, Monotony.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Choices 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, Choices, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/choices.html, id L28928.
Form and metre
Choices is 17 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-------- things · fewA · night · monotone · talk · adulteries · death · regrets · youA · with · bread · work · war · now · hunger · danger · hate
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 |
|---|---|---|
| They offer you many things, | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| I a few. | 3 | ··· |
| Moonlight on the play of fountains at night | 10 | /·····/˘·· |
| With water sparkling a drowsy monotone, | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘/˘· |
| Bare-shouldered, smiling women and talk | 9 | ·/˘/˘/˘·· |
| And a cross-play of loves and adulteries | 11 | ·······˘/˘˘ |
| And a fear of death | 5 | ····· |
| and a remembering of regrets: | 9 | ··˘/˘˘·˘/ |
| All this they offer you. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| I come with: | 3 | ··· |
| salt and bread | 3 | ··· |
| a terrible job of work | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| and tireless war; | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| Come and have now: | 4 | ···· |
| hunger. | 2 | /˘ |
| danger | 2 | /˘ |
| and hate. | 2 | ·· |
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.