Loam
In the loam we sleep,In the cool moist loam,To the lull of years that passAnd the break of stars,
From the loam, then,The soft warm loam,We rise:To shape of rose leaf,Of face and shoulder.
We stand, then,To a whiff of life,Lifted to the silver of the sunOver and out of the loamA day.
Words in this poem
- lull v. t.
- To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm; to soothe; to quiet. [Akin to OD. lullen to sing to sleep, G. lullen, Dan. lulle, Sw. lulla; all of imitative origin. Cf. Loll, Lollard.]
- whiff n.
- A sudden expulsion of air from the mouth; a quick puff or slight gust, as of air or smoke. [OE. weffe vapor, whiff, probably of imitative origin; cf. Dan. vift a puff, gust, W. chwiff a whiff, puff.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Loam 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, Loam, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/loam.html, id L29015.
Form and metre
Loam is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In the loam we sleep, | 5 | ····· |
| In the cool moist loam, | 5 | ····· |
| To the lull of years that pass | 7 | ······· |
| And the break of stars, | 5 | ····· |
| From the loam, then, | 4 | ···· |
| The soft warm loam, | 4 | ···· |
| We rise: | 2 | ·· |
| To shape of rose leaf, | 5 | ····· |
| Of face and shoulder. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| We stand, then, | 3 | ··· |
| To a whiff of life, | 5 | ····· |
| Lifted to the silver of the sun | 9 | /˘··/˘··· |
| Over and out of the loam | 7 | ······· |
| A day. | 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.