Sandburg, Carl. "Fog".

Summary and Analysis

A brief, condensed Imagist poem in a simple, easily accessible language: "The fog comes / on little cat feet. / It sits looking / over harbor and city / on silent haunches / and then moves on."

The way in which the fog is brought into the city resembles the way an infection is spread. The poem juxtaposes the images of the fog and the cat, reinforcing the stealthy way in which the fog comes.

The pronoun "it" in the third line could refer both to the fog and to the cat. It most likely refers to the fog, yet the behaviour of "it" resembles more that of a cat than that of fog (it "sits" on its "haunches").