Laughing Corn
There was a high majestic foolingDay before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow cornThere will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summerAnd come on with a conquering laughter,Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalkAnd a spot of red is on its shoulderAnd I never heard its name in my life.
Some of the ears are bursting.A white juice works inside.Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.Always—I never knew it any other way—The wind and the corn talk things over together.And the rain and the corn and the sun and the cornTalk things over together.
Over the road is the farmhouse.The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose.It will not be fixed till the corn is husked.The farmer and his wife talk things over together.
Words in this poem
- farmhouse n.
- A dwelling house on a farm; a farmer's residence.
- siding n.
- Attaching one's self to a party.
- husked a.
- Covered with a husk.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Laughing Corn 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, Laughing Corn, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/laughing-corn.html, id L29000.
Form and metre
Laughing Corn is 22 lines in 6 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.
- 3 -AA summer · laughterA · laughterA
- 5 ----A-A bursting · inside · wind · way · togetherA · corn · togetherA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There was a high majestic fooling | 9 | ····˘/˘/˘ |
| Day before yesterday in the yellow corn. | 11 | ···/˘···/˘· |
| And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn | 12 | ·····/˘··/˘· |
| There will be high majestic fooling. | 9 | ····˘/˘/˘ |
| The ears ripen in late summer | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And come on with a conquering laughter, | 10 | ·····/˘˘/˘ |
| Come on with a high and conquering laughter. | 11 | ······/˘˘/˘ |
| The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk | 12 | ···/˘/˘/˘··· |
| And a spot of red is on its shoulder | 10 | ········/˘ |
| And I never heard its name in my life. | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Some of the ears are bursting. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| A white juice works inside. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind. | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| Always—I never knew it any other way— | 12 | /··/˘··/˘/˘· |
| The wind and the corn talk things over together. | 12 | ·········˘/˘ |
| And the rain and the corn and the sun and the corn | 12 | ············ |
| Talk things over together. | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Over the road is the farmhouse. | 8 | ······/· |
| The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose. | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| It will not be fixed till the corn is husked. | 10 | ·········· |
| The farmer and his wife talk things over together. | 13 | ·/˘·······˘/˘ |
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.