Shirt
I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind.Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff.And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of a careless humming woman.One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own talking to a spread of white stars:It was you that slunk laughingin the clumsy staggering shadows.Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway somewhere in the city's push and furyOr under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.
Words in this poem
- drank n.
- Wild oats, or darnel grass. See Drake a plant. [Cf. 3d Drake.]
- glassful a.
- Glassy; shining like glass.
- nobody n.
- No person; no one; not anybody. [No, a. + body.]
- bonfire n.
- A large fire built in the open air, as an expression of public joy and exultation, or for amusement. [OE. bonefire, banefire, orig. a fire of bones; bone + fire; but cf. also Prov. E. bun a dry stalk.]
- clumsy a.
- Stiff or benumbed, as with cold. [OE. clumsed benumbed, fr. clumsen to be benumbed; cf. Icel. klumsa lockjaw, dial. Sw. klummsen benumbed with cold. Cf. 1st Clam, and 1st Clamp.]
- doorway n.
- The passage of a door; entrance way into a house or a room.
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
- oaken a.
- Made or consisting of oaks or of the wood of oaks. [AS. acen.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Shirt 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, Shirt, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/shirt.html, id L28943.
Form and metre
Shirt is 8 lines in a single stanza.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind. | 22 | ·˘/˘·········/˘˘······ |
| Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. | 29 | ·/˘·˘/···/˘·/˘··/˘··/˘······· |
| And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of a careless humming woman. | 26 | ·˘/··/·········/˘···/˘/˘/˘ |
| One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own talking to a spread of white stars: | 36 | ·······/˘/˘··/·˘/˘˘·/˘··/˘··/˘······ |
| It was you that slunk laughing | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| in the clumsy staggering shadows. | 9 | ··/˘/˘˘/· |
| Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway somewhere in the city's push and fury | 37 | /˘/˘·˘/˘·····˘/··/˘/˘····/·/···/˘··/˘ |
| Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you. | 43 | ·········/˘·/˘·····/˘·/˘·/˘··˘/˘/····/˘˘··· |
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.