I Am the People, the Mob
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.
Words in this poem
- workingman n.
- A laboring man; a man who earns his daily support by manual labor.
- fleck n.
- A flake; also, a lock, as of wool. J. Martin.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I Am the People, the Mob 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, I Am the People, the Mob, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/i-am-the-people-the-mob.html, id L28986.
Form and metre
I Am the People, the Mob is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 ----AABB mass · me · clothes · lincolns · forgetA · forgetA · derisionB · thenB
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 am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? | 15 | ··············· |
| I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes. | 19 | ···/˘˘·˘/˘·/˘······ |
| I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. | 40 | ···/˘˘·/˘˘/˘˘·˘/˘˘·····/˘········˘/˘˘·/˘ |
| I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. | 63 | ········/˘·····/˘/˘˘······˘/········/˘·˘//˘··················˘/ |
| Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget. | 26 | ˘/····/·/˘·····/˘˘·˘/˘··˘/ |
| When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. | 77 | ···/˘··˘/˘···/˘··/˘·/˘···/˘˘/················/˘········/˘·/˘········/˘····˘/˘ |
| The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then. | 10 | ·······˘/· |
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