Carl Sandburg
Hemlock and Cedar
THIN sheets of blue smoke among white slabs… near the shingle mill… winter morning. Falling of a dry leaf might be heard… circular steel tears through a log. Slope of woodland… brown… soft… tinge
Grass
PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres
Spanish
FASTEN black eyes on me. I ask nothing of you under the peach trees, Fasten your black eyes in my gray with the spear of a storm. The air under the peach blossoms is
A Coin
YOUR western heads here cast on money, You are the two that fade away together, Partners in the mist. Lunging buffalo shoulder, Lean Indian face, We who come after where you are gone Salute
Legends
CLOWNS DYINGFIVE circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers told their lives, how each one horizontal in a last gesture of hands arranged by an undertaker, shook thousands into convulsions of laughter from behind
Cadenza
THE KNEES of this proud woman Are bone. The elbows of this proud woman Are bone. The summer-white stars and the winter-white stars Never stop circling around this proud woman. The bones of this
Whirls
NEITHER rose leaves gathered in a jar-respectably in Boston-these-nor drops of Christ blood for a chalice-decently in Philadelphia or Baltimore. Cinders-these-hissing in a marl and lime of Chicago-also these-the howling of northwest winds across
Limited
I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains Of the nation. Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air Go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people. (All
Three Ghosts
THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People. The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts. Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat Cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each
Sunset From Omaha Hotel Window
INTO the blue river hills The red sun runners go And the long sand changes And to-day is a goner And to-day is not worth haggling over. Here in Omaha The gloaming is bitter
The Skyscraper Loves Night
ONE by one lights of a skyscraper fling their checkering cross work on the velvet gown of night. I believe the skyscraper loves night as a woman and brings her playthings she asks for,
The Answer
You have spoken the answer. A child searches far sometimes Into the red dust On a dark rose leaf And so you have gone far For the answer is: Silence. In the republic Of
It Is Much
Women of night life amid the lights Where the line of your full, round throats Matches in gleam the glint of your eyes And the ring of your heart-deep laughter: It is much to
Population Drifts
NEW-MOWN hay smell and wind of the plain made her A woman whose ribs had the power of the hills in Them and her hands were tough for work and there Was passion for
Clark Street Bridge
DUST of the feet And dust of the wheels, Wagons and people going, All day feet and wheels. Now. . . . . Only stars and mist A lonely policeman, Two cabaret dancers, Stars