To Beachey—1912
Riding against the east,A veering, steady shadowPurrs the motor-callOf the man-birdReady with the death-laughterIn his throatAnd in his heart alwaysThe love of the big blue beyond.
Only a man,A far fleck of shadow on the eastSitting at easeWith his hands on a wheelAnd around him the large gray wings.Hold him, great soft wings,Keep and deal kindly, O wings,With the cool, calm shadow at the wheel.
Words in this poem
- fleck n.
- A flake; also, a lock, as of wool. J. Martin.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Beachey—1912 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 Beachey—1912, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/to-beachey-1912.html, id L28895.
Form and metre
To Beachey—1912 is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 ---ABBBA man · east · ease · wheelA · wingsB · wingsB · wingsB · wheelA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Riding against the east, | 6 | /˘···· |
| A veering, steady shadow | 7 | ·/˘/˘/· |
| Purrs the motor-call | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Of the man-bird | 4 | ···· |
| Ready with the death-laughter | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| In his throat | 3 | ··· |
| And in his heart always | 6 | ····/· |
| The love of the big blue beyond. | 8 | ········ |
| Only a man, | 4 | /˘·· |
| A far fleck of shadow on the east | 9 | ····/···· |
| Sitting at ease | 4 | /˘·· |
| With his hands on a wheel | 6 | ······ |
| And around him the large gray wings. | 8 | ········ |
| Hold him, great soft wings, | 5 | ····· |
| Keep and deal kindly, O wings, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| With the cool, calm shadow at the wheel. | 9 | ····/···· |
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.