Subway
Down between the walls of shadowWhere the iron laws insist,The hunger voices mock.
The worn wayfaring menWith the hunched and humble shoulders,Throw their laughter into toil.
Words in this poem
- insist v. i.
- To stand or rest; to find support; -- with in, on, or upon. [F. insister, L. insistere to set foot upon, follow, persist; pref. in- in + sistere to stand, cause to stand. See Stand.]
- wayfaring a.
- Traveling; passing; being on a journey.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Subway 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, Subway, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/subway.html, id L28861.
Form and metre
Subway is 6 lines in 2 stanzas of 3 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Down between the walls of shadow | 8 | ······/· |
| Where the iron laws insist, | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| The hunger voices mock. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| The worn wayfaring men | 5 | ··/˘· |
| With the hunched and humble shoulders, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Throw their laughter into toil. | 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.