Ch 17Fog

Fog

Poet: Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), a famous American poet, biographer and journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize three times. He is known for writing in free verse about ordinary American life, industry and cities, especially Chicago. "Fog" is one of the best-known short poems in the English language.

Introduction

"Fog" is a tiny poem of only six lines and twenty-two words, yet it is celebrated all over the world for its perfect central image. Sandburg describes fog rolling in over a harbour and a city by comparing it to a cat. The poem was reportedly inspired by a real moment: Sandburg was carrying a book of Japanese haiku while walking to interview a judge in Chicago, saw fog over the harbour, and captured it in a haiku-like miniature. Like a haiku, the poem freezes a single moment of nature, presents one clear picture, and ends before the picture fades.

Stanza-wise Explanation

Stanza 1 (lines 1–2)

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

The poet announces the arrival of the fog. It does not crash in like a storm; it arrives the way a cat enters a room — silently, softly, almost unnoticed. The phrase "little cat feet" captures the noiseless, padded, creeping movement of a cat. In two short lines Sandburg establishes the single metaphor on which the entire poem rests: the fog is a cat. The word "little" also makes the fog seem gentle and harmless rather than frightening.

Stanza 2 (lines 3–6)

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Once it has arrived, the fog behaves exactly like a cat that has found a comfortable spot. It "sits" quietly, surveying the harbour and the city below, the way a cat crouches on its haunches (the folded back legs on which a cat rests) and gazes at everything around it with calm curiosity. The haunches are "silent" — the fog makes no sound at all as it covers the city. Then, just as a cat loses interest and pads away without warning or farewell, the fog "moves on" and disappears. The poem ends as quietly as it began, mirroring the brief, temporary life of fog itself.

Poetic Devices

• Extended metaphor: the whole poem is one sustained, implied comparison of the fog to a cat. It is never stated as "the fog is like a cat"; instead the fog is simply given a cat's feet ("on little cat feet") and a cat's haunches ("on silent haunches"). Because the comparison runs through all six lines, it is an extended metaphor.
• Personification / animal imagery (zoomorphism): a lifeless natural phenomenon is given the actions of a living creature — it "comes", "sits looking" and "moves on" like an animal with a will of its own.
• Imagery: strong visual imagery of the grey fog crouched "over harbor and city", and kinaesthetic imagery of soft, creeping movement in "on little cat feet".
• Alliteration: the repetition of the 's' sound in "sits", "silent" and the soft hushed sounds throughout the poem imitate the silence of both the cat and the fog.
• Enjambment: the lines run on into one another without punctuation until the end, so the poem glides forward smoothly, just as fog drifts without pause.
• Free verse: there is no rhyme and no fixed metre; the loose, unhurried form matches the shapeless, drifting nature of fog.

Theme / Central Idea

The poem presents nature through a fresh, imaginative eye. Its central idea is that even a common, dull weather event like fog becomes beautiful and full of personality when a poet observes it closely. By comparing the fog to a cat, Sandburg highlights three shared qualities: both arrive silently and unexpectedly, both sit calmly and watchfully for a while, and both leave whenever they please, answering to no one. On a deeper level the poem suggests the quiet, mysterious and temporary nature of things: like fog, moods, troubles and moments in life descend on us silently, stay a while, and then move on. The poem also demonstrates the power of brevity — a complete, satisfying picture can be painted in just a few carefully chosen words.

Rhyme Scheme

The poem has no rhyme scheme — it is written in free verse. There is no regular metre and no rhyming line-endings. This is deliberate: fog itself has no fixed shape or pattern, and the free, unrhymed lines drift exactly the way fog does. The six lines are usually printed as two small stanzas of two and four lines.

Important Word Meanings