Child Margaret
The child Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers.All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child's room.Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps.The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps.All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a hump on its back and 8 is knock-kneed.The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8.(Each number is a bran-new rag doll...O in the wishing fingers...millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!)
Words in this poem
- saturday n.
- The seventh or last day of the week; the day following Friday and preceding Sunday. [OE. Saterday, AS. Sæterdæg, Sæterndæg, Sæternesdæg, literally, Saturn's day, fr. L. Saturnus Saturn + AS. dæg day; cf. L. dies Saturni.]
- assertive a.
- Positive; affirming confidently; affirmative; peremptory.
- straightforward a.
- Proceeding in a straight course or manner; not deviating; honest; frank.
- trapeze n.
- A trapezium. See Trapezium, 1. [Cf. F. trapèze.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Child Margaret 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, Child Margaret, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/child-margaret.html, id L29031.
Form and metre
Child Margaret is 7 lines in a single stanza. 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.
- 1 --AA--- fingers · room · strapsA · handclapsA · kneed · — · dolls
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The child Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. | 31 | ··/˘˘˘/··/˘··/˘˘/˘··/˘····/˘·/˘ |
| All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child's room. | 21 | ··/˘·····/˘˘/˘······· |
| Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. | 22 | ···//˘/˘·˘····˘/˘/·/˘· |
| The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps. | 26 | ··˘/·/˘/˘/˘·/˘···˘//˘/˘··· |
| All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a hump on its back and 8 is knock-kneed. | 19 | ··/˘···/˘·········· |
| The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8. | 16 | ··/˘˘/˘·····/˘·· |
| (Each number is a bran-new rag doll...O in the wishing fingers...millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!) | 30 | ·/˘·········/˘/˘/˘···/˘·/˘···· |
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.