Early Moon
The baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west.A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon.One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers.O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams.Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West?Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?—no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail?Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west?
Words in this poem
- papoose n.
- A babe or young child of Indian parentage in North America.
- wiry a.
- Made of wire; like wire; drawn out like wire. [Written also wiery.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Early Moon 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, Early Moon, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/early-moon.html, id L28999.
Form and metre
Early Moon 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 A---A-A westA · moon · watchers · dreams · westA · trail · westA
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 baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. | 23 | ·/˘··˘/·/˘˘/˘/·····/˘˘· |
| A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. | 24 | ···/˘/˘···/˘/˘······/˘˘· |
| One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. | 23 | ·/˘···/˘·······/˘····/˘ |
| O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams. | 29 | ·/˘/˘·/˘···/˘·/˘˘/˘·/˘······· |
| Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West? | 24 | ······/˘/˘·········/˘··· |
| Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?—no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail? | 43 | ····˘/˘/˘··/˘/·/˘/˘/˘····/˘····/˘·/˘······· |
| Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west? | 31 | ···/·····/˘/˘····/˘··/˘˘/··/˘˘· |
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.