Sketch
The shadows of the shipsRock on the crestIn the low blue lustreOf the tardy and the soft inrolling tide.
A long brown bar at the dip of the skyPuts an arm of sand in the span of salt.
The lucid and endless wrinklesDraw in, lapse and withdraw.Wavelets crumble and white spent bubblesWash on the floor of the beach.
Rocking on the crestIn the low blue lustreAre the shadows of the ships.
Words in this poem
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sketch 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, Sketch, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/sketch.html, id L28851.
Form and metre
Sketch is 13 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The shadows of the ships | 6 | ·/···· |
| Rock on the crest | 4 | ···· |
| In the low blue lustre | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide. | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| A long brown bar at the dip of the sky | 10 | ·········· |
| Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. | 10 | ·········· |
| The lucid and endless wrinkles | 8 | ·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Draw in, lapse and withdraw. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| Wash on the floor of the beach. | 7 | ······· |
| Rocking on the crest | 5 | /˘··· |
| In the low blue lustre | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Are the shadows of the ships. | 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.