The Plowboy
After the last red sunset glimmer,Black on the line of a low hill rise,Formed into moving shadows, I sawA plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.The turf had a gleam of brown,And smell of soil was in the air,And, cool and moist, a haze of April.
I shall remember you long,Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.I shall remember you and the pictureYou made for me,Turning the turf in the duskAnd haze of an April gloaming.
Words in this poem
- plowboy n.
- A boy that drives or guides a team in plowing; a young rustic.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- gloaming n.
- Twilight; dusk; the fall of the evening. [Scot. & North of Eng., and in poetry.] Hogg. [See Gloom.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Plowboy 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 Plowboy, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/the-plowboy.html, id L28980.
Form and metre
The Plowboy is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| After the last red sunset glimmer, | 9 | ·····/·/˘ |
| Black on the line of a low hill rise, | 9 | ········· |
| Formed into moving shadows, I saw | 9 | ···/˘/··· |
| A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray, | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| Plowing in the dusk the last furrow. | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| The turf had a gleam of brown, | 7 | ······· |
| And smell of soil was in the air, | 8 | ········ |
| And, cool and moist, a haze of April. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| I shall remember you long, | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow. | 12 | ···/˘·····/· |
| I shall remember you and the picture | 10 | ··˘/˘···/˘ |
| You made for me, | 4 | ···· |
| Turning the turf in the dusk | 7 | /˘····· |
| And haze of an April gloaming. | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
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.