Cripple
Once when I saw a crippleGasping slowly his last days with the white plague,Looking from hollow eyes, calling for air,Desperately gesturing with wasted handsIn the dark and dust of a house down in a slum,I said to myselfI would rather have been a tall sunflowerLiving in a country gardenLifting a golden-brown face to the summer,Rain-washed and dew-misted,Mixed with the poppies and ranking hollyhocks,And wonderingly watching night after nightThe clear silent processionals of stars.
Words in this poem
- cripple n.
- One who creeps, halts, or limps; one who has lost, or never had, the use of a limb or limbs; a lame person; hence, one who is partially disabled. [OE. cripel, crepel, crupel, AS. crypel (akin to D. kreuple, G. kr, Dan. kr, Icel. kryppill), prop., one that can not walk, but must creep, fr. AS. cre to creep.]
- desperately adv.
- In a desperate manner; without regard to danger or safety; recklessly; extremely; as, the troops fought desperately.
- wonderingly adv.
- In a wondering manner.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cripple 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, Cripple, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/cripple.html, id L28875.
Form and metre
Cripple is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%).
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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. Read against trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Once when I saw a cripple | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Gasping slowly his last days with the white plague, | 11 | /˘/˘······· |
| Looking from hollow eyes, calling for air, | 10 | /˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Desperately gesturing with wasted hands | 11 | /˘˘˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| In the dark and dust of a house down in a slum, | 12 | ············ |
| I said to myself | 5 | ····/ |
| I would rather have been a tall sunflower | 11 | ··/˘····/·˘ |
| Living in a country garden | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Lifting a golden-brown face to the summer, | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| Rain-washed and dew-misted, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Mixed with the poppies and ranking hollyhocks, | 11 | ···/˘·/˘/˘· |
| And wonderingly watching night after night | 11 | ·/˘˘˘/˘···· |
| The clear silent processionals of stars. | 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.