Wilderness
There is a wolf in me...fangs pointed for tearing gashes...a red tongue for raw meat...and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me...a silver-gray fox...I sniff and guess...I pick things out of the wind and air...I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers...I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me...a snout and a belly...a machinery for eating and grunting...a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me...I know I came from salt-blue water-gates...I scurried with shoals of herring...I blew waterspouts with porpoises...before land was...before the water went down...before Noah...before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me...clambering-clawed...dog-faced...yawping a galoot's hunger...hairy under the armpits...here are thehawk-eyed hankering men...here are the blond and blue-eyed women...here they hide curled asleep waiting...ready to snarl and kill...ready to sing and give milk...waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird...and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want...and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- sierra n.
- A ridge of mountain and craggy rocks, with a serrated or irregular outline; as, the Sierra Nevada. [Sp., properly, a saw, fr. L. serra a saw. See Serrate.]
- forenoon n.
- The early part of the day, from morning to meridian, or noon.
- underbrush n.
- Shrubs, small trees, and the like, in a wood or forest, growing beneath large trees; undergrowth.
- menagerie n.
- A piace where animals are kept and trained. [F. ménagerie, fr. ménager to keep house, ménage household. See Menial, Mansion.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Wilderness 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, Wilderness, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/wilderness.html, id L29017.
Form and metre
Wilderness is 8 lines in 7 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 |
|---|---|---|
| There is a wolf in me...fangs pointed for tearing gashes...a red tongue for raw meat...and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. | 51 | ·······/˘·/˘/˘·········/˘·········/˘˘······/˘˘····· |
| There is a fox in me...a silver-gray fox...I sniff and guess...I pick things out of the wind and air...I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers...I circle and loop and double-cross. | 51 | ·······/˘·······················/˘······/˘·/˘···/˘· |
| There is a hog in me...a snout and a belly...a machinery for eating and grunting...a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go. | 56 | ··········/˘·˘/˘˘·/˘·/˘·˘/˘˘·/˘/˘··········/˘˘··/˘˘····· |
| There is a fish in me...I know I came from salt-blue water-gates...I scurried with shoals of herring...I blew waterspouts with porpoises...before land was...before the water went down...before Noah...before the first chapter of Genesis. | 58 | ·············/˘··/˘···/˘······/˘˘·······/˘····/˘····/˘·/˘˘ |
| There is a baboon in me...clambering-clawed...dog-faced...yawping a galoot's hunger...hairy under the armpits...here are the | 30 | ···˘/··/˘˘········/˘/˘···/···· |
| hawk-eyed hankering men...here are the blond and blue-eyed women...here they hide curled asleep waiting...ready to snarl and kill...ready to sing and give milk...waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. | 51 | ··/˘˘········/˘····˘//˘/˘····/˘·····/˘···˘/···/˘˘·· |
| There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird...and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want...and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. | 104 | ···/˘····/˘···/˘····/˘/˘········˘/˘·······/˘·/˘··/˘/˘······/˘··/˘····˘/˘··/˘····/·/···/˘····/˘··/˘···/˘˘ |
| O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness. | 104 | ········˘/˘˘˘/·····/˘··········/˘········/˘·····/˘·/˘·/˘········/˘········/˘·························/˘˘ |
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