Carl Sandburg

Smoke Rose Gold

Smoke Rose Gold - form Summary

Free Verse Visual Turn

The poem uses open, unmetered lines to compress a twilight scene into a brief visual and temporal shift. Sandburg moves swiftly from capitol dome and Potomac through sunset haze to a single star, layering color and motion without formal constraint. The free-verse field lets images and short clauses accumulate and then yield to a quiet ending, where the star’s distant call gestures beyond the immediate urban landscape.

Read Complete Analyses

THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river. Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke rose gold: One star shines over the sunset. Night takes the dome and the river, the sun and the smoke rose gold, The haze changes from sunset to star. The pour of a thin silver struggles against the dark. A star might call: It's a long way across.

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