Testament
I give the undertakers permission to haul my bodyto the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, thefeet, the hands, all: I know there is something leftover they can not put away.
Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shantypeople eat the clover over my grave and if any yellowhair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to growover me let the dirty-fisted children of the shantypeople pick these flowers.
I have had my chance to live with the people who havetoo much and the people who have too little and I choseone of the two and I have told no man why.
Words in this poem
- graveyard n.
- A yard or inclosure for the interment of the dead; a cemetery.
- nanny n.
- A diminutive of Ann or Anne, the proper name. Nanny goat, a female goat.
- billy n.
- A club; esp., a policeman's club.
- shanty n.
- A small, mean dwelling; a rough, slight building for temporary use; a hut. [Said to be fr. Ir. sean old + tig. a house.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Testament 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, Testament, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/testament.html, id L29055.
Form and metre
Testament is 12 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
See other poems in trochaic heptameter.
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 A--A- shantyA · yellow · grow · shantyA · flowers
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 trochaic heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I give the undertakers permission to haul my body | 15 | ···/˘·˘˘/˘···/˘ |
| to the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the | 13 | ··/····˘/···· |
| feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left | 11 | ········/˘· |
| over they can not put away. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty | 14 | ··/˘···/˘···/˘ |
| people eat the clover over my grave and if any yellow | 16 | /˘··/˘······/˘/˘ |
| hair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to grow | 15 | ··/˘···/˘··˘/·· |
| over me let the dirty-fisted children of the shanty | 15 | ·····/˘/˘/˘··/˘ |
| people pick these flowers. | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| I have had my chance to live with the people who have | 13 | ·········/˘·· |
| too much and the people who have too little and I chose | 14 | ····/˘···/˘··· |
| one of the two and I have told no man why. | 11 | ··········· |
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.