Dynamiter
I sat with a dynamiter at supper in a German saloon eating steak and onions.And he laughed and told stories of his wife and children and the cause of labor and the working class.It was laughter of an unshakable man knowing life to be a rich and red-blooded thing.Yes, his laugh rang like the call of gray birds filled with a glory of joy ramming their winged flight through a rain storm.His name was in many newspapers as an enemy of the nation and few keepers of churches or schools would open their doors to him.Over the steak and onions not a word was said of his deep days and nights as a dynamiter.Only I always remember him as a lover of life, a lover of children, a lover of all free, reckless laughter everywhere—lover of red hearts and red blood the world over.
Words in this poem
- dynamiter n.
- One who uses dynamite; esp., one who uses it for the destruction of life and property.
- unshakable a.
- Not capable of being shaken; firm; fixed. Shak. J. S. Mill.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dynamiter 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, Dynamiter, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/dynamiter.html, id L28888.
Form and metre
Dynamiter is 7 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I sat with a dynamiter at supper in a German saloon eating steak and onions. | 22 | ····/˘˘·/˘··/˘˘//˘··/˘ |
| And he laughed and told stories of his wife and children and the cause of labor and the working class. | 24 | ·····/˘····/˘····/˘··/˘· |
| It was laughter of an unshakable man knowing life to be a rich and red-blooded thing. | 23 | ··/˘··˘/˘˘·/˘·······/˘· |
| Yes, his laugh rang like the call of gray birds filled with a glory of joy ramming their winged flight through a rain storm. | 26 | ·············/˘··/˘······· |
| His name was in many newspapers as an enemy of the nation and few keepers of churches or schools would open their doors to him. | 34 | ····/˘/·˘··/˘˘··/˘··/˘·/˘···/˘···· |
| Over the steak and onions not a word was said of his deep days and nights as a dynamiter. | 23 | ·····/˘·············/˘˘ |
| Only I always remember him as a lover of life, a lover of children, a lover of all free, reckless laughter everywhere—lover of red hearts and red blood the world over. | 46 | /˘·/·˘/˘···/˘···/˘·/˘·/˘···/˘/˘/˘·/˘·········· |
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.