The Answer
You have spoken the answer.A child searches far sometimesInto the red dustOn a dark rose leafAnd so you have gone farFor the answer is:Silence.
In the republicOf the winking starsand spent cataclysmsSure we are it is off there the answer is hidden and folded over,Sleeping in the sun, careless whether it is Sunday or any other day of the week,
Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.
Have we not seenPurple of the pansyout of the mulchand moldcrawlinto a duskof velvet?blur of yellow?Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,the future,working.
Words in this poem
- republic n.
- Common weal. B. Jonson. [F. république, L. respublica commonwealth; res a thing, an affair + publicus, publica, public. See Real, a., and Public.]
- mulch n.
- Half-rotten straw, or any like substance strewn on the ground, as over the roots of plants, to protect from heat, drought, etc., and to preserve moisture. [Cf. mull dirt, also Prov. G. mulsch, molsch, rotten, soft, mellow, as fruit.]
- crawl v. i.
- To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and kness; to creep. [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kr to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.]
- nowhere adv.
- Not anywhere; not in any place or state; as, the book is nowhere to be found. [AS. nahwær. See No, and Where.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Answer 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, The Answer, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/the-answer.html, id L28932.
Form and metre
The Answer is 24 lines in 4 stanzas.
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.
- 2 A---A republicA · stars · cataclysms · over · weekA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You have spoken the answer. | 7 | ··/˘·/˘ |
| A child searches far sometimes | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Into the red dust | 5 | ····· |
| On a dark rose leaf | 5 | ····· |
| And so you have gone far | 6 | ······ |
| For the answer is: | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Silence. | 2 | /˘ |
| In the republic | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Of the winking stars | 5 | ··/˘· |
| and spent cataclysms | 6 | ··/˘·˘ |
| Sure we are it is off there the answer is hidden and folded over, | 18 | ········/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Sleeping in the sun, careless whether it is Sunday or any other day of the week, | 22 | /˘···/˘····/··/˘/˘···· |
| Knowing silence will bring all one way or another. | 13 | /˘/˘······˘/˘ |
| Have we not seen | 4 | ···· |
| Purple of the pansy | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| out of the mulch | 4 | ···· |
| and mold | 2 | ·· |
| crawl | 1 | · |
| into a dusk | 4 | ···· |
| of velvet? | 3 | ·/˘ |
| blur of yellow? | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence, | 13 | /····/·····/˘ |
| the future, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| working. | 2 | /˘ |
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.