Gone
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town.Far offEverybody loved her.So we all love a wild girl keeping a holdOn a dream she wants.Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went.Nobody knows why she packed her trunk… a few old thingsAnd is gone,Gone with her little chinThrust ahead of herAnd her soft hair blowing carelessFrom under a wide hat,Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover.
Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick?Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts?Everybody loved Chick Lorimer.Nobody knows where she’s gone.
Words in this poem
- lorimer n.
- A maker of bits, spurs, and metal mounting for bridles and saddles; hence, a saddler. Holinshed. [OF. lormier, loremier, fr. LL. loranum bridle, L. lorum thong, the rein of a bridle.]
- nobody n.
- No person; no one; not anybody. [No, a. + body.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- ahead adv.
- In or to the front; in advance; onward. [Pref. a- + head.]
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Gone 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, Gone, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/gone.html, id L28972.
Form and metre
Gone is 17 lines in 2 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--- town · off · herA · hold · wants · went · things · gone · chin · herA · careless · hat · lover
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Everybody loved Chick Lorimer in our town. | 13 | /˘·˘··/˘˘·/˘· |
| Far off | 2 | ·· |
| Everybody loved her. | 6 | /˘·˘·· |
| So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| On a dream she wants. | 5 | ····· |
| Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. | 11 | /······/˘˘· |
| Nobody knows why she packed her trunk… a few old things | 13 | /············ |
| And is gone, | 3 | ··· |
| Gone with her little chin | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Thrust ahead of her | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| And her soft hair blowing careless | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| From under a wide hat, | 6 | ······ |
| Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover. | 12 | /˘/˘·/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick? | 11 | ······/˘/˘· |
| Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts? | 11 | ·····/˘·/˘· |
| Everybody loved Chick Lorimer. | 9 | /˘·˘··/˘˘ |
| Nobody knows where she’s gone. | 7 | /······ |
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.