Fire Dreams
I remember here by the fire,In the flickering reds and saffrons,They came in a ramshackle tub,Pilgrims in tall hats,Pilgrims of iron jaws,Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,And the random chapters sayThey were glad and sang to God.
And soSince the iron-jawed men sat downAnd said, "Thanks, O God,"For life and soup and a little lessThan a hobo handout to-day,Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,Since the iron-jawed men sang "Thanks, O God,"You and I, O Child of the West,Remember more than everNovember and the hunter's moon,November and the yellow-spotted hills.
And soIn the name of the iron-jawed menI will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: "Thanks, O God."
Words in this poem
- ramshackle a.
- Loose; disjointed; falling to pieces; out of repair. [Etymol. uncertain.]
- hobo n.
- A professional tramp; one who spends his life traveling from place to place, esp. by stealing rides on trains, and begging for a living. [U. S.] -- Ho"bo*ism (#), n.
- sleet n.
- The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fire Dreams 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, Fire Dreams, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/fire-dreams.html, id L29075.
Form and metre
Fire Dreams is 25 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
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.
- 2 --A---A---- so · down · godA · less · day · rock · godA · west · ever · moon · hills
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 remember here by the fire, | 9 | ·˘/˘···/˘ |
| In the flickering reds and saffrons, | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| They came in a ramshackle tub, | 8 | ····/·˘· |
| Pilgrims in tall hats, | 5 | /˘··· |
| Pilgrims of iron jaws, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Drifting by weeks on beaten seas, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| And the random chapters say | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| They were glad and sang to God. | 7 | ······· |
| And so | 2 | ·· |
| Since the iron-jawed men sat down | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And said, "Thanks, O God," | 5 | ····· |
| For life and soup and a little less | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Than a hobo handout to-day, | 8 | ··/˘/··· |
| Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock, | 13 | ·····/˘···/˘· |
| Since the iron-jawed men sang "Thanks, O God," | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| You and I, O Child of the West, | 8 | ········ |
| Remember more than ever | 7 | ˘/˘··/˘ |
| November and the hunter's moon, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| November and the yellow-spotted hills. | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘/˘· |
| And so | 2 | ·· |
| In the name of the iron-jawed men | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| I will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone. | 15 | ·········/˘···· |
| God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers, | 13 | ···/˘·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| God of all star-flung beaches of night sky, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: "Thanks, O God." | 17 | ·······˘/˘······· |
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.