Horses and Men in Rain
Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.
Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches—and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.
A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain.Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain.
Words in this poem
- radiator n.
- That which radiates or emits rays, whether of light or heat; especially, that part of a heating apparatus from which the heat is radiated or diffused; as, a stream radiator.
- grocery n.
- The commodities sold by grocers, as tea, coffee, spices, etc.; -- in the United States almost always in the plural form, in this sense. [F. grosserie wholesale. See Grocer.]
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
- roustabout n.
- A laborer, especially a deck hand, on a river steamboat, who moves the cargo, loads and unloads wood, and the like; in an opprobrious sense, a shiftless vagrant who lives by chance jobs. [Etymol. uncertain.]
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- hunks n.
- A covetous, sordid man; a miser; a niggard. [Etymol. uncertain.]
- nudge v. t.
- To touch gently, as with the elbow, in order to call attention or convey intimation. [Cf. Prov. G. knütschen to squeeze, pinch, E. Knock.]
- rode n.
- Redness; complexion. [See Rud.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Horses and Men in Rain 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, Horses and Men in Rain, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/horses-and-men-in-rain.html, id L29044.
Form and metre
Horses and Men in Rain is 6 lines in 3 stanzas of 2 lines each. 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.
- 3 AA rainA · rainA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, | 29 | ·····/˘·/˘·˘·/˘···/˘˘/˘/···/˘ |
| And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. | 20 | ·······/˘/˘·/˘˘˘/˘˘· |
| Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches—and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. | 37 | ···/˘···/˘···/˘·····/˘˘·/˘˘·/˘˘/·/˘/· |
| Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail and men called "knights" riding horses in the rain, in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved. | 39 | ····/˘/˘··/˘··/˘·····/˘/˘······/˘··/˘·· |
| A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim, sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in slant of rain. | 42 | ·/˘˘····/˘··/˘˘········/˘················· |
| Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men who rode horses in the rain. | 47 | ·····/˘·˘·/˘·/˘··/˘·/˘··/˘·/˘·/˘···/˘/˘···/˘··· |
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.