The Year
A storm of white petals,Buds throwing open baby fistsInto hands of broad flowers.
Red roses running upward,Clambering to the clutches of lifeSoaked in crimson.
Rabbles of tattered leavesHolding golden flimsy hopesAgainst the tramplingsInto the pits and gullies.
Hoarfrost and silence:Only the mufflingOf winds dark and lonesome—Great lullabies to the long sleepers.
Words in this poem
- hoarfrost n.
- The white particles formed by the congelation of dew; white frost.
- lonesome a.
- Secluded from society; not frequented by human beings; solitary.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Year 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, The Year, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/the-year.html, id L29077.
Form and metre
The Year is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 storm of white petals, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Buds throwing open baby fists | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Into hands of broad flowers. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Red roses running upward, | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Clambering to the clutches of life | 9 | /˘˘··/˘·· |
| Soaked in crimson. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Rabbles of tattered leaves | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Holding golden flimsy hopes | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Against the tramplings | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Into the pits and gullies. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Hoarfrost and silence: | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Only the muffling | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Of winds dark and lonesome— | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Great lullabies to the long sleepers. | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
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.