Jabberers
I rise out of my depths with my language.You rise out of your depths with your language.
Two tongues from the depths,Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike,Fling their staccato tantalizationsInto a wildcat jabberOver a gossamer web of unanswerables.
The second and the third silence,Even the hundredth silence,Is better than no silence at all(Maybe this is a jabber too—are we at it again, you and I?)
I rise out of my depths with my language.You rise out of your depths with your language.
One thing there is much of; the name men call it by is time; into this gulf our syllabic pronunciamentos empty by the way rockets of fire curve and are gone on the night sky; into this gulf the jabberings go as the shower at a scissors grinder's wheel....
Words in this poem
- gossamer n.
- A fine, filmy substance, like cobwebs, floating in the air, in calm, clear weather, especially in autumn. It is seen in stubble fields and on furze or low bushes, and is formed by small spiders. [OE. gossomer, gossummer, gosesomer, perh. for goose summer, from its downy appearance, or perh. for God's summer, cf. G. mariengarr gossamer, properly Mary's ya]
- maybe adv.
- Perhaps; possibly; peradventure. [For it may be.]
- syllabic a.
- Of or pertaining to a syllable or syllables; as, syllabic accent. [Gr. syllabique.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Jabberers 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, Jabberers, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/jabberers.html, id L29036.
Form and metre
Jabberers is 14 lines in 5 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.
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 AA languageA · languageA
- 3 AA-- silenceA · silenceA · all · i
- 4 AA languageA · languageA
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 rise out of my depths with my language. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| You rise out of your depths with your language. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Two tongues from the depths, | 5 | ····· |
| Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike, | 17 | ˘//˘··/˘····/˘·˘/ |
| Fling their staccato tantalizations | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Into a wildcat jabber | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
| Over a gossamer web of unanswerables. | 13 | ···/˘˘····˘˘˘ |
| The second and the third silence, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Even the hundredth silence, | 7 | /˘·/˘/˘ |
| Is better than no silence at all | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| (Maybe this is a jabber too—are we at it again, you and I?) | 17 | /˘···/˘·····˘/··· |
| I rise out of my depths with my language. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| You rise out of your depths with your language. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| One thing there is much of; the name men call it by is time; into this gulf our syllabic pronunciamentos empty by the way rockets of fire curve and are gone on the night sky; into this gulf the jabberings go as the shower at a scissors grinder's wheel.... | 66 | ··················/˘˘/˘·····/˘···/˘·/˘···················/˘··/˘/˘· |
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.