Films
I have kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a corner with a "P-f-f."
The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones.Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again.They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October,Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow.Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes,O there shall be no ragman have these yet a year, yet ten years.
Words in this poem
- ragman n.
- A document having many names or numerous seals, as a papal bull. Piers Plowman. [See Ragman's roll.]
- flurry n.
- A sudden and brief blast or gust; a light, temporary breeze; as, a flurry of wind. [Prov. E. flur to ruffle.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Films 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, Films, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/films.html, id L29060.
Form and metre
Films is 7 lines in 2 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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a corner with a "P-f-f." | 30 | ········˘/··/˘··/˘·····/˘····· |
| The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones. | 23 | ···············/˘···/˘· |
| Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again. | 24 | ········˘/˘·˘/˘·····/˘˘/ |
| They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October, | 22 | ·····/˘······/˘····˘/˘ |
| Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow. | 23 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘˘/˘˘··········· |
| Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes, | 13 | ··········/˘· |
| O there shall be no ragman have these yet a year, yet ten years. | 15 | ·····/˘········ |
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.