Old Woman
The owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echoFrom building and battered paving-stone;The headlight scoffs at the mistAnd fixes its yellow rays in the cold slow rain;Against a pane I press my foreheadAnd drowsily look on the walls and sidewalks.
The headlight finds the wayAnd life is gone from the wet and the welter—Only an old woman, bloated, disheveled and bleared.Far-wandered waif of other days,Huddles for sleep in a doorway,Homeless.
Words in this poem
- dogged a.
- Sullen; morose. [Fron. Dog.]
- headlight n.
- A light, with a powerful reflector, placed at the head of a locomotive, or in front of it, to throw light on the track at night, or in going through a dark tunnel.
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
- drowsily adv.
- In a drowsy manner.
- welter v. i.
- To roll, as the body of an animal; to tumble about, especially in anything foul or defiling; to wallow. [Freq. of OE. walten to roll over, AS. wealtan; akin to LG. weltern, G. walzen to roll, to waltz, sich wälzen to welter, OHG. walzan to roll, Icel. velta, Dan. v]
- disheveled a.
- Having in loose disorder; disarranged; as, disheveled hair.
- bleared a.
- Dimmed, as by a watery humor; affected with rheum.
- doorway n.
- The passage of a door; entrance way into a house or a room.
- homeless a.
- Destitute of a home. [AS.hamleas.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Old Woman 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, Old Woman, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/old-woman.html, id L28982.
Form and metre
Old Woman is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each.
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.
- 2 A---A- wayA · welter · bleared · days · doorwayA · homeless
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echo | 12 | ···/˘˘/···/˘ |
| From building and battered paving-stone; | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘· |
| The headlight scoffs at the mist | 7 | ·/····· |
| And fixes its yellow rays in the cold slow rain; | 12 | ·/˘·/˘······ |
| Against a pane I press my forehead | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And drowsily look on the walls and sidewalks. | 11 | ·/˘˘·····/· |
| The headlight finds the way | 6 | ·/···· |
| And life is gone from the wet and the welter— | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Only an old woman, bloated, disheveled and bleared. | 13 | /˘··/˘/˘˘/˘·· |
| Far-wandered waif of other days, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Huddles for sleep in a doorway, | 8 | /˘····/· |
| Homeless. | 2 | /˘ |
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.