Pearl Fog
Open the door now.Go roll up the collar of your coatTo walk in the changing scarf of mist.
Tell your sins here to the pearl fogAnd know for once a deepening nightStrange as the half-meaningsAlurk in a wise woman's mousey eyes.
Yes, tell your sinsAnd know how careless a pearl fog isOf the laws you have broken.
About this text
Pearl Fog 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, Pearl Fog, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/pearl-fog.html, id L28949.
Form and metre
Pearl Fog is 10 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%).
See other poems in trochaic pentameter.
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Open the door now. | 5 | /˘··· |
| Go roll up the collar of your coat | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| To walk in the changing scarf of mist. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Tell your sins here to the pearl fog | 8 | ········ |
| And know for once a deepening night | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| Strange as the half-meanings | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Alurk in a wise woman's mousey eyes. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Yes, tell your sins | 4 | ···· |
| And know how careless a pearl fog is | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Of the laws you have broken. | 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.