Monotone
The monotone of the rain is beautiful,And the sudden rise and slow relapseOf the long multitudinous rain.
The sun on the hills is beautiful,Or a captured sunset sea-flung,Bannered with fire and gold.
A face I know is beautiful—With fire and gold of sky and sea,And the peace of long warm rain.
Words in this poem
- monotone n.
- A single unvaried tone or sound. [See Monotonous, Monotony.]
- multitudinous a.
- Consisting of a multitude; manifold in number or condition; as, multitudinous waves.
- bannered a.
- Decorated with a banner or banners
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Monotone 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, Monotone, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/monotone.html, id L28941.
Form and metre
Monotone is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The monotone of the rain is beautiful, | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
| And the sudden rise and slow relapse | 9 | ··/˘···˘/ |
| Of the long multitudinous rain. | 9 | ········· |
| The sun on the hills is beautiful, | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| Or a captured sunset sea-flung, | 9 | ··/˘˘/··· |
| Bannered with fire and gold. | 8 | /˘˘·/˘·· |
| A face I know is beautiful— | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| With fire and gold of sky and sea, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| And the peace of long warm rain. | 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.