Hemlock and Cedar
Thin sheets of blue smoke among white slabs...near the shingle mill...winter morning.Falling of a dry leaf might be heard...circular steel tears through a log.Slope of woodland...brown...soft...tinge of blue such as pansy eyes.Farther, field fires...funnel of yellow smoke...spellings of other yellow in corn stubble.Bobsled on a down-hill road...February snow mud...horses steaming...Oscar the driver sings ragtime under a spot of red seen a mile...the red wool yarn of Oscar's stocking cap is seen from the shingle mill to the ridge of hemlock and cedar.
Words in this poem
- shingle n.
- Round, water-worn, and loose gravel and pebbles, or a collection of roundish stones, such as are common on the seashore and elsewhere. [Prob. from Norw. singl, singling, coarse gravel, small round stones.]
- bobsled n.
- A short sled, mostly used as one of a pair connected by a reach or coupling; also, the compound sled so formed. [U. S.]
- ragtime n.
- Time characterized by syncopation, as in many negro melodies.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hemlock and Cedar 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, Hemlock and Cedar, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/hemlock-and-cedar.html, id L29065.
Form and metre
Hemlock and Cedar is 5 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thin sheets of blue smoke among white slabs...near the shingle mill...winter morning. | 18 | ···········/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Falling of a dry leaf might be heard...circular steel tears through a log. | 17 | /˘·······/˘˘····· |
| Slope of woodland...brown...soft...tinge of blue such as pansy eyes. | 14 | ··/········/˘· |
| Farther, field fires...funnel of yellow smoke...spellings of other yellow in corn stubble. | 22 | /˘·/˘/˘·/˘·/˘·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Bobsled on a down-hill road...February snow mud...horses steaming...Oscar the driver sings ragtime under a spot of red seen a mile...the red wool yarn of Oscar's stocking cap is seen from the shingle mill to the ridge of hemlock and cedar. | 60 | /······/˘·˘··/˘/˘/˘·/˘·/···············/˘/˘·····/˘·····/··/˘ |
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.