Iron
Guns,Long, steel guns,Pointed from the war shipsIn the name of the war god.Straight, shining, polished guns,Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.
Shovels,Broad, iron shovels,Scooping out oblong vaults,Loosening turf and leveling sod.
I ask youTo witness—The shovel is brother to the gun.
Words in this poem
- lithe v. i.
- To listen or listen to; to hearken to. P. Plowman. [Icel Listen.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Iron 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, Iron, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/iron.html, id L28918.
Form and metre
Iron is 16 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 AA--AB-B- gunsA · gunsA · ships · god · gunsA · blousesB · teeth · blousesB · chanties
- 2 AA-- shovelsA · shovelsA · vaults · sod
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Guns, | 1 | · |
| Long, steel guns, | 3 | ··· |
| Pointed from the war ships | 6 | /˘···· |
| In the name of the war god. | 7 | ······· |
| Straight, shining, polished guns, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Clambered over with jackies in white blouses, | 11 | /˘···/˘··/˘ |
| Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth, | 10 | /˘··/˘···· |
| Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses, | 9 | /˘·/˘··/˘ |
| Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties. | 11 | /˘···/˘···· |
| Shovels, | 2 | /˘ |
| Broad, iron shovels, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Scooping out oblong vaults, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Loosening turf and leveling sod. | 9 | /˘˘··/˘˘· |
| I ask you | 3 | ··· |
| To witness— | 3 | ·/˘ |
| The shovel is brother to the gun. | 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.