The Road and the End
I shall foot itDown the roadway in the dusk,Where shapes of hunger wanderAnd the fugitives of pain go by.I shall foot itIn the silence of the morning,See the night slur into dawn,Hear the slow great winds ariseWhere tall trees flank the wayAnd shoulder toward the sky.
The broken boulders by the roadShall not commemorate my ruin.Regret shall be the gravel under foot.I shall watch forSlim birds swift of wingThat go where wind and ranks of thunderDrive the wild processionals of rain.
The dust of the traveled roadShall touch my hands and face.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- roadway n.
- A road; especially, the part traveled by carriages.
- slur v. t.
- To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace. Cudworth. [Cf. OE. sloor mud, clay, Icel. sl, slo, to trail or drag one's self along, D. sleuren, sloren, to train, to drag, to do negligently and slovenly, D. sloor, sloe]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Road and the End 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 Road and the End, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/the-road-and-the-end.html, id L28927.
Form and metre
The Road and the End is 19 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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.
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--BA----B itA · dusk · wander · byB · itA · morning · dawn · arise · way · skyB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I shall foot it | 4 | ···· |
| Down the roadway in the dusk, | 7 | ··/···· |
| Where shapes of hunger wander | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And the fugitives of pain go by. | 9 | ··/˘˘···· |
| I shall foot it | 4 | ···· |
| In the silence of the morning, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| See the night slur into dawn, | 7 | ······· |
| Hear the slow great winds arise | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Where tall trees flank the way | 6 | ······ |
| And shoulder toward the sky. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| The broken boulders by the road | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Shall not commemorate my ruin. | 9 | ··˘/˘··/˘ |
| Regret shall be the gravel under foot. | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| I shall watch for | 4 | ···· |
| Slim birds swift of wing | 5 | ····· |
| That go where wind and ranks of thunder | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Drive the wild processionals of rain. | 9 | ···˘/˘˘·· |
| The dust of the traveled road | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Shall touch my hands and face. | 6 | ······ |
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.