Ashurnatsirpal III
Three walls around the town of Tela when I came.They expected everything of those walls;Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet.
I knocked the walls down, killed three thousand soldiers,Took away cattle and sheep, took all the loot in sight,And burned special captives.
Some of the soldiers—I cut off hands and feet.Others—I cut off ears and fingers.Some—I put out the eyes.I made a pyramid of heads.I strung heads on trees circling the town.
When I got through with itThere wasn't much left of the town of Tela.
Words in this poem
- nobody n.
- No person; no one; not anybody. [No, a. + body.]
- loot n.
- The act of plundering. [Hind. l, Skr. l, l, booty, lup to break, spoil; prob. akin to E. rob.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ashurnatsirpal III 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, Ashurnatsirpal III, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/ashurnatsirpal-iii.html, id L29069.
Form and metre
Ashurnatsirpal III is 13 lines in 4 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.
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.
- 3 -AA-- feet · fingersA · eyesA · heads · town
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Three walls around the town of Tela when I came. | 12 | ············ |
| They expected everything of those walls; | 10 | ·˘/˘/˘···· |
| Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet. | 12 | /··········· |
| I knocked the walls down, killed three thousand soldiers, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Took away cattle and sheep, took all the loot in sight, | 13 | ·˘//˘········ |
| And burned special captives. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Some of the soldiers—I cut off hands and feet. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Others—I cut off ears and fingers. | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Some—I put out the eyes. | 6 | ······ |
| I made a pyramid of heads. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| I strung heads on trees circling the town. | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| When I got through with it | 6 | ······ |
| There wasn't much left of the town of Tela. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
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.