Slants at Buffalo, New York
A forefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky.It says: This way! this way!
Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft.They too are the dream of a sculptor.They too say: This way! this way!
The street cars swing at a curve.The middle-class passengers witness low life.The car windows frame low life all day in pictures.
Two Italian cellar delicatessenssell red and green peppers.The Florida bananas furnish a burst of yellow.The lettuce and the cabbage give a green.
Boys play marbles in the cinders.The boys' hands need washing.The boys are glad; they fight among each other.
A plank bridge leaps the Lehigh Valley railroad.Then acres of steel rails, freight cars, smoke,And then...the blue lake shore...Erie with Norse blue eyes...and the white sun.
Words in this poem
- forefinger n.
- The finger next to the thumb; the index.
- sculptor n.
- One who sculptures; one whose occupation is to carve statues, or works of sculpture. [L. sculptor, fr. sculpere, sculptum, to carve; cf. scalpere to cut, carve, scratch, and Gr. sculpteur.]
- snore v. i.
- To breathe with a rough, hoarse, nasal voice in sleep. [OE. snoren, AS. snora a snoring; akin to LG. snoren, snorken, snurken, to snore, D. snorken, G. schnarchen to snore, schnarren to rattle, MHG. snarren, Sw. snar]
- norse a.
- Of or pertaining to ancient Scandinavia, or to the language spoken by its inhabitants. [Dan. Norsk, fr. nord north. See North.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Slants at Buffalo, New York 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, Slants at Buffalo, New York, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/slants-at-buffalo-new-york.html, id L29047.
Form and metre
Slants at Buffalo, New York is 19 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A forefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. | 15 | ·/·˘·····/˘···· |
| It says: This way! this way! | 6 | ······ |
| Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft. | 13 | ·/˘·····/˘··· |
| They too are the dream of a sculptor. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| They too say: This way! this way! | 7 | ······· |
| The street cars swing at a curve. | 7 | ······· |
| The middle-class passengers witness low life. | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘·· |
| The car windows frame low life all day in pictures. | 12 | ··/˘······/˘ |
| Two Italian cellar delicatessens | 11 | ·˘/˘/˘·˘˘/˘ |
| sell red and green peppers. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The Florida bananas furnish a burst of yellow. | 14 | ·/˘˘˘/˘/˘···/˘ |
| The lettuce and the cabbage give a green. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Boys play marbles in the cinders. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| The boys' hands need washing. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The boys are glad; they fight among each other. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| A plank bridge leaps the Lehigh Valley railroad. | 11 | ·····/·/˘/· |
| Then acres of steel rails, freight cars, smoke, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| And then...the blue lake shore | 6 | ······ |
| ...Erie with Norse blue eyes...and the white sun. | 10 | /˘········ |
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.