River Roads
Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.Let 'em hawk their caw and caw.
Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of yearsAnd the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.Let his red head drum and drum.
Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.
Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines.And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman's shawl on lazy shoulders.
Words in this poem
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
River Roads 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, River Roads, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/river-roads.html, id L28997.
Form and metre
River Roads is 11 lines in 4 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 A-A cawA · somewhere · cawA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw. | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere. | 13 | ···/˘·/····/· |
| Let 'em hawk their caw and caw. | 7 | ······· |
| Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump. | 14 | ··/·˘·····/˘˘· |
| He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years | 16 | ···/˘·····/·/˘·· |
| And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head. | 16 | ················ |
| Let his red head drum and drum. | 7 | ······· |
| Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass. | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places. | 24 | ····/˘··/˘····/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines. | 16 | ··/˘····˘/˘····· |
| And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman's shawl on lazy shoulders. | 24 | ···˘/·/˘··/˘····/˘··/˘/˘ |
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.