Leather Leggings
They have taken the ball of earthand made it a little thing.
They were held to the land and horses;they were held to the little seas.They have changed and shaped and welded;they have broken the old tools and madenew ones; they are ranging the whitescarves of cloudland; they are bumpingthe sunken bells of the Carthaginiansand Phœnicians:they are handlingthe strongest seaas a thing to be handled.
The earth was a call that mocked;it is belted with wires and meshed withsteel; from Pittsburg to Vladivostok isan iron ride on a moving house; fromJerusalem to Tokyo is a reckoned span;and they talk at night in the storm andsalt, the wind and the war.
They have counted the miles to the Sunand Canopus; they have weighed a smallblue star that comes in the southeastcorner of the sky on a foretold errand.
We shall search the sea again.We shall search the stars again.There are no bars across the way.There is no end to the plan and the clue,the hunt and the thirst.The motors are drumming, the leather leggingsand the leather coats wait:Under the seaand out to the starswe go.
Words in this poem
- meshed a.
- Mashed; brewed.
- canopus n.
- A star of the first magnitude in the southern constellation Argo.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- clue n.
- A ball of thread, yarn, or cord; also, The thread itself. [OE. clewe, clowe, clue, AS. cleowen, cliwen, clywe ball of thread; akin to D. kluwen, OHG. chliwa, chliuwa, G. dim. kleuel, knäuel, and perch. to L. gluma hull,]
- drumming n.
- The act of beating upon, or as if upon, a drum; also, the noise which the male of the ruffed grouse makes in spring, by beating his wings upon his sides.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Leather Leggings 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, Leather Leggings, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/leather-leggings.html, id L29033.
Form and metre
Leather Leggings is 34 lines in 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
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 AABB--CC--- horsesA · seasA · weldedB · madeB · white · bumping · carthaginiansC · phœniciansC · handling · sea · handled
- 5 AA-------- againA · againA · way · clue · thirst · leggings · wait · sea · stars · go
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 |
|---|---|---|
| They have taken the ball of earth | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| and made it a little thing. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| They were held to the land and horses; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| they were held to the little seas. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| They have changed and shaped and welded; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| they have broken the old tools and made | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| new ones; they are ranging the white | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| scarves of cloudland; they are bumping | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| the sunken bells of the Carthaginians | 11 | ·/˘····˘/˘˘ |
| and Phœnicians: | 4 | ···· |
| they are handling | 4 | ··/˘ |
| the strongest sea | 4 | ·/˘· |
| as a thing to be handled. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The earth was a call that mocked; | 7 | ······· |
| it is belted with wires and meshed with | 10 | ··/˘·/˘··· |
| steel; from Pittsburg to Vladivostok is | 10 | ··/˘··˘/˘· |
| an iron ride on a moving house; from | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| Jerusalem to Tokyo is a reckoned span; | 13 | ˘/˘˘·/˘···/˘· |
| and they talk at night in the storm and | 9 | ········· |
| salt, the wind and the war. | 6 | ······ |
| They have counted the miles to the Sun | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| and Canopus; they have weighed a small | 9 | ·˘/˘····· |
| blue star that comes in the southeast | 8 | ·······/ |
| corner of the sky on a foretold errand. | 11 | /˘·····˘//˘ |
| We shall search the sea again. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| We shall search the stars again. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| There are no bars across the way. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| There is no end to the plan and the clue, | 10 | ·········· |
| the hunt and the thirst. | 5 | ····· |
| The motors are drumming, the leather leggings | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| and the leather coats wait: | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Under the sea | 4 | ···· |
| and out to the stars | 5 | ····· |
| we go. | 2 | ·· |
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.