To a Dead Man
Over the dead line we have called to youTo come across with a word to us,Some beaten whisper of what happensWhere you are over the dead lineDeaf to our calls and voiceless.
The flickering shadows have not answeredNor your lips sent a signalWhether love talks and roses growAnd the sun breaks at morningSplattering the sea with crimson.
Words in this poem
- voiceless a.
- Having no voice, utterance, or vote; silent; mute; dumb.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Dead 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, To a Dead Man, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/to-a-dead-man.html, id L28933.
Form and metre
To a Dead Man is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
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--A you · usA · happens · line · voicelessA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Over the dead line we have called to you | 9 | ········· |
| To come across with a word to us, | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| Some beaten whisper of what happens | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Where you are over the dead line | 8 | ········ |
| Deaf to our calls and voiceless. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| The flickering shadows have not answered | 9 | ·/˘/···/˘ |
| Nor your lips sent a signal | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Whether love talks and roses grow | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And the sun breaks at morning | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Splattering the sea with crimson. | 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.