Statistics
Napoleon shifted,Restless in the old sarcophagusAnd murmured to a watchguard:"Who goes there?""Twenty-one million men,Soldiers, armies, guns,Twenty-one millionAfoot, horseback,In the air,Under the sea."And Napoleon turned to his sleep:"It is not my world answering;It is some dreamer who knows notThe world I marched inFrom Calais to Moscow."And he slept onIn the old sarcophagusWhile the aëroplanesDroned their motorsBetween Napoleon's mausoleumAnd the cool night stars.
Words in this poem
- napoleon n.
- A French gold coin of twenty francs, or about $3.86. [From the Emperor Napoleon 1.]
- dreamer n.
- One who dreams.
- mausoleum n.
- A magnificent tomb, or stately sepulchral monument.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Statistics 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, Statistics, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/statistics.html, id L28920.
Form and metre
Statistics is 21 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.
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.
- 1 -A-BC-C-B----D-DA---- shifted · sarcophagusA · watchguard · thereB · menC · guns · millionC · horseback · airB · sea · sleep · answering · not · inD · moscow · onD · sarcophagusA · aëroplanes · motors · mausoleum · stars
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Napoleon shifted, | 6 | ˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Restless in the old sarcophagus | 9 | /˘···˘/˘˘ |
| And murmured to a watchguard: | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| "Who goes there?" | 3 | ··· |
| "Twenty-one million men, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Soldiers, armies, guns, | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| Twenty-one million | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Afoot, horseback, | 4 | ˘//· |
| In the air, | 3 | ··· |
| Under the sea." | 4 | ···· |
| And Napoleon turned to his sleep: | 9 | ·˘/˘˘···· |
| "It is not my world answering; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| It is some dreamer who knows not | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The world I marched in | 5 | ····· |
| From Calais to Moscow." | 6 | ·˘/·/· |
| And he slept on | 4 | ···· |
| In the old sarcophagus | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| While the aëroplanes | 5 | ····· |
| Droned their motors | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Between Napoleon's mausoleum | 10 | ··˘/˘˘·˘/˘ |
| And the cool night stars. | 5 | ····· |
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.