Docks

Carl Sandburg 1878 (Galesburg) – 1967 (Flat Rock)



Strolling along
By the teeming docks,
I watch the ships put out.
Black ships that heave and lunge
And move like mastodons
Arising from lethargic sleep.

The fathomed harbor
Calls them not nor dares
Them to a strain of action,
But outward, on and outward,
Sounding low-reverberating calls,
Shaggy in the half-lit distance,
They pass the pointed headland,
View the wide, far-lifting wilderness
And leap with cumulative speed
To test the challenge of the sea.

Plunging,
Doggedly onward plunging,
Into salt and mist and foam and sun.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

26 sec read
59

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABXAX XXCXXXBXXX DDC
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 533
Words 89
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 10, 3

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor best known for poetry. more…

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