Broadway
Broadway - form Summary
Free Verse Urban Elegy
Written in free verse, the poem addresses Broadway in a plain, conversational voice that mixes admiration with grief. The lack of formal meter and rhyme lets Sandburg shift quickly from dazzled memory to harsh assessment, so the city’s glitter and its human cost coexist without resolution. The speaker remembers lights and laughter but also recalls lives reduced to "ashes" and "dust," giving the poem an elegiac, eyewitness tone.
Read Complete AnalysesI shall never forget you, Broadway Your golden and calling lights. I'll remember you long, Tall-walled river of rush and play. Hearts that know you hate you And lips that have given you laughter Have gone to their ashes of life and its roses, Cursing the dreams that were lost In the dust of your harsh and trampled stones.
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