Always the Mob
Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering four-footed in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.
Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? TheWoolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.
The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.
The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...
The mob...kills or builds...the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob—I die in the mob—the same goes for you—I don't care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother—I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother—I die for you and I kill you—It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:One more arch of stars,In the night of our mist,In the night of our tears.
Words in this poem
- coolie n.
- An East Indian porter or carrier; a laborer transported from the East Indies, China, or Japan, for service in some other country. [Hind. k a laborer, porter: cf. Turk. k, ky, slave.]
- wrote v. i.
- To root with the snout. See 1st Root. [OE. wroten. See 1st Root.]
- piled a.
- Having a pile or point; pointed. [From 2d Pile.]
- typhoon n.
- A violent whirlwind; specifically, a violent whirlwind occurring in the Chinese seas. [Earlier tuffoon, tuffon, Pg. tufao, Ar. tufan a violent storm; probably fr. Gr. tyfw^n, tyfw^s, a violent whirlwind, that rushes upward from the earth, whirling]
- geyser n.
- A boiling spring which throws forth at frequent intervals jets of water, mud, etc., driven up by the expansive power of steam. [Icel. geysir, fr. geysa to rush furiously, fr. gj to gush. Cf. Gush.]
- khan n.
- A king; a prince; a chief; a governor; -- so called among the Tartars, Turks, and Persians, and in countries now or formerly governed by them. [Pers. & Tart. khan.]
- napoleon n.
- A French gold coin of twenty francs, or about $3.86. [From the Emperor Napoleon 1.]
- gnarled a.
- Knotty; full of knots or gnarls; twisted; crossgrained.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Always the Mob is in the public domain. This text is taken from Cornhuskers, 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, Always the Mob, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/always-the-mob.html, id L29035.
Form and metre
Always the Mob is 16 lines in 12 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob. | 36 | /˘/˘·/˘·····/˘······················ |
| The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering four-footed in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all. | 40 | ······˘/˘/˘˘·/˘··/················/˘···· |
| Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob. | 22 | ··/˘˘·····/˘·····/˘··· |
| Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob. | 36 | ····/˘/˘·········/˘·/˘˘············· |
| The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan. | 50 | ·/˘·········/˘/˘·/˘˘···········/˘·/˘·············· |
| Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now. | 49 | ···/˘···/˘/·˘··/˘·˘//˘··/˘/˘·/˘········/·/˘·/˘··· |
| Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The | 24 | ····/˘··/˘˘/˘/˘/˘·/˘˘/˘· |
| Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow. | 55 | /·····˘/˘··/·˘/˘····/˘············/˘····˘/˘··/˘·/˘···/˘ |
| The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons. | 64 | ····//˘··/˘·/˘·/˘·/˘/˘·˘/˘···/˘····/˘·/˘/˘··/˘··/˘··/˘··˘/˘·/˘·˘ |
| The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening... | 17 | ·····/˘·/˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| The mob...kills or builds...the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln. | 24 | ········˘/˘·······˘/˘˘/˘ |
| I am born in the mob—I die in the mob—the same goes for you—I don't care who you are. | 22 | ······················ |
| I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother—I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother—I die for you and I kill you—It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool: | 49 | ·····/˘·······/˘···········/˘···········/˘····/˘· |
| One more arch of stars, | 5 | ····· |
| In the night of our mist, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| In the night of our tears. | 7 | ····/˘· |
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.