washington crossing the delaware

A hard, howling, tossing water scene.
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.
When star general's action wish'd "Go!"
He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands – sailor crew went going.
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens – winter again grows cold.
A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.

George can't lose war with's hands in;
He's astern – so go alight, crew, and win!

David Shulman wrote this in 1936. It's 14 lines, but not really a sonnet; it has strange image-heavy locutions like modern poetry does, but is in a traditional form. The more you look at it, the more you notice how strange some of the phrases are.

People who are into such things might begin to look for signs of wordplay: any missing letters? In fact, yes. A, E, I, and O appear, but not U. No F, either. Then you notice that it's really a few letters that *are* there. G (hey, one on every line), W (hey, two on every line!) ... suddenly it hits you that the exact same numbers of each letter are on each line.

Each line, ladies and gentlemen, is an anagram of every other line. They all use the same letters. And, ladies and gentlemen, those are the exact same letters as in the title "Washington Crossing the Delaware."