Docks
Strolling alongBy the teeming docks,I watch the ships put out.Black ships that heave and lungeAnd move like mastodonsArising from lethargic sleep.
The fathomed harborCalls them not nor daresThem to a strain of action,But outward, on and outward,Sounding low-reverberating calls,Shaggy in the half-lit distance,They pass the pointed headland,View the wide, far-lifting wildernessAnd leap with cumulative speedTo test the challenge of the sea.
Plunging,Doggedly onward plunging,Into salt and mist and foam and sun.
Words in this poem
- teeming a.
- Prolific; productive.
- cumulative a.
- Composed of parts in a heap; forming a mass; agregated. [Cf. F. cumulatif.]
- doggedly adv.
- In a dogged manner; sullenly; with obstinate resolution.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Docks 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, Docks, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/docks.html, id L28974.
Form and metre
Docks is 19 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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.
- 3 AA- plungingA · plungingA · sun
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Strolling along | 4 | /˘˘/ |
| By the teeming docks, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| I watch the ships put out. | 6 | ······ |
| Black ships that heave and lunge | 6 | ······ |
| And move like mastodons | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Arising from lethargic sleep. | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| The fathomed harbor | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Calls them not nor dares | 5 | ····· |
| Them to a strain of action, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| But outward, on and outward, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Sounding low-reverberating calls, | 9 | /˘·˘/˘·˘· |
| Shaggy in the half-lit distance, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| They pass the pointed headland, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| View the wide, far-lifting wilderness | 9 | ····/˘/˘˘ |
| And leap with cumulative speed | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
| To test the challenge of the sea. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Plunging, | 2 | /˘ |
| Doggedly onward plunging, | 7 | /˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Into salt and mist and foam and sun. | 9 | ········· |
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.