Cumulatives
Storms have beaten on this point of landAnd ships gone to wreck hereand the passers-by remember itwith talk on the deck at nightas they near it.
Fists have beaten on the face of this old prize-fighterAnd his battles have held the sporting pagesand on the street they indicate him with their right fore-finger as one who once wore a championship belt.
A hundred stories have been published and a thousand rumoredAbout why this tall dark man has divorced two beautiful young womenAnd married a third who resembles the first twoand they shake their heads and say, "There he goes,"when he passes by in sunny weather or in rain along the city streets.
Words in this poem
- fighter n.
- One who fights; a combatant; a warrior. [AS. feohtere.]
- championship n.
- State of being champion; leadership; supremancy.
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cumulatives 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, Cumulatives, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/cumulatives.html, id L28881.
Form and metre
Cumulatives is 13 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.
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 land · here · itA · night · itA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Storms have beaten on this point of land | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| And ships gone to wreck here | 6 | ······ |
| and the passers-by remember it | 9 | ··/˘·˘/˘· |
| with talk on the deck at night | 7 | ······· |
| as they near it. | 4 | ···· |
| Fists have beaten on the face of this old prize-fighter | 13 | ··/˘·······/˘ |
| And his battles have held the sporting pages | 11 | ··/˘···/˘/˘ |
| and on the street they indicate him with their right fore-finger as one who once wore a championship belt. | 26 | ·····/˘······/˘······/˘˘·· |
| A hundred stories have been published and a thousand rumored | 15 | ·/˘/˘··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| About why this tall dark man has divorced two beautiful young women | 17 | ········˘/·/˘˘·/˘ |
| And married a third who resembles the first two | 12 | ·/˘···˘/˘··· |
| and they shake their heads and say, "There he goes," | 10 | ·········· |
| when he passes by in sunny weather or in rain along the city streets. | 19 | ··/˘··/˘/˘···˘/·/˘· |
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.