Memoir
Papa Joffre, the shoulders of him wide as the land of France.
We look on the shoulders filling the stage of the Chicago Auditorium.
A fat mayor has spoken much English and the mud of his speech is crossed with quicksilver hisses elusive and rapid from floor and gallery.
A neat governor speaks English and the listeners ring chimes to his clear thoughts.
Joffre speaks a few words in French; this is a voice of the long firing line that runs from the salt sea dunes of Flanders to the white spear crags of the Swiss mountains.
This is the man on whose yes and no has hung the death of battalions and brigades; this man speaks of the tricolor of his country now melted in a great resolve with the starred bunting of Lincoln and Washington.
This is the hero of the Marne, massive, irreckonable; he lets tears roll down his cheek; they trickle a wet salt off his chin onto the blue coat.
There is a play of American hands and voices equal to sea-breakers and a lift of white sun on a stony beach.
Words in this poem
- papa n.
- A child's word for father. [F. papa, L. papa; cf. Gr. Pope.]
- auditorium n.
- The part of a church, theater, or other public building, assigned to the audience. [L. See Auditory, n.]
- elusive a.
- Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.
- tricolor n.
- The national French banner, of three colors, blue, white, and red, adopted at the first revolution. [F. tricolore, drapeau tricolore a tricolored flag, fr. tricolore three-colored; tri (see Tri-) + L. color color.]
- starred a.
- Adorned or studded with stars; bespangled. [From Star.]
- onto prep.
- On the top of; upon; on. See On to, under On, prep. [On + to. Cf. Into.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Memoir 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, Memoir, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/memoir.html, id L29094.
Form and metre
Memoir is 8 lines in 8 stanzas of 1 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Papa Joffre, the shoulders of him wide as the land of France. | 14 | /˘··/˘········ |
| We look on the shoulders filling the stage of the Chicago Auditorium. | 20 | ····/˘/˘····˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| A fat mayor has spoken much English and the mud of his speech is crossed with quicksilver hisses elusive and rapid from floor and gallery. | 36 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘·········//˘/˘˘/˘·/˘···/˘˘ |
| A neat governor speaks English and the listeners ring chimes to his clear thoughts. | 19 | ··/˘˘·/˘··/˘˘······ |
| Joffre speaks a few words in French; this is a voice of the long firing line that runs from the salt sea dunes of Flanders to the white spear crags of the Swiss mountains. | 37 | ··············/˘·········/˘········/˘ |
| This is the man on whose yes and no has hung the death of battalions and brigades; this man speaks of the tricolor of his country now melted in a great resolve with the starred bunting of Lincoln and Washington. | 51 | ··············˘/˘·˘/·····/˘··/˘·/˘···˘/···/˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| This is the hero of the Marne, massive, irreckonable; he lets tears roll down his cheek; they trickle a wet salt off his chin onto the blue coat. | 36 | ···/˘···/˘·············/˘······/˘··· |
| There is a play of American hands and voices equal to sea-breakers and a lift of white sun on a stony beach. | 30 | ·····˘/˘˘··/˘/˘··/˘········/˘· |
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.