The Junk Man
I am glad God saw DeathAnd gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired of living:
When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and the connections looseAnd the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time from hour to hourAnd people around the house joke about what a bum clock it is,How glad the clock is when the big Junk Man drives his wagonUp to the house and puts his arms around the clock and says:“You don’t belong here,You gotta comeAlong with me,”How glad the clock is then, when it feels the arms of the Junk Man close around it and carry it away.
Words in this poem
- ticking n.
- A strong, closely woven linen or cotton fabric, of which ticks for beds are made. It is usually twilled, and woven in stripes of different colors, as white and blue; -- called also ticken. [From Tick a bed cover. Cf. Ticken.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Junk Man 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 Junk Man, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/the-junk-man.html, id L28993.
Form and metre
The Junk Man is 11 lines in 2 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---- loose · hour · isA · wagon · saysA · here · come · me · away
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 am glad God saw Death | 6 | ······ |
| And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired of living: | 17 | ·····/˘·····/˘·/˘ |
| When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and the connections loose | 17 | ·············˘/˘· |
| And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time from hour to hour | 19 | ·····/˘·/˘····/˘·/˘ |
| And people around the house joke about what a bum clock it is, | 16 | ·/˘············· |
| How glad the clock is when the big Junk Man drives his wagon | 14 | ············/˘ |
| Up to the house and puts his arms around the clock and says: | 14 | ·············· |
| “You don’t belong here, | 5 | ··˘/· |
| You gotta come | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Along with me,” | 4 | ˘/·· |
| How glad the clock is then, when it feels the arms of the Junk Man close around it and carry it away. | 25 | ····················/˘·˘/ |
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.