Carl Sandburg – Monotone

The monotone of the rain is beautiful,And the sudden rise and slow relapseOf the long multitudinous rain.    The sun on the hills is beautiful,Or a captured sunset sea-flung,Bannered with fire and gold.    A face I know is beautiful —With fire and gold of sky...

Carl Sandburg – Knucks

In Abraham Lincoln’s city,Where they remember his lawyer’s shingle,The place where they brought himWrapped in battle flags,Wrapped in the smoke of memoriesFrom Tallahassee to the Yukon,The place now where the shaft of his tombPoints white against the blue prairie dome,In Abraham...

Carl Sandburg – Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;   Stormy, husky, brawling,   City of the Big Shoulders:They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your...

Carl Sandburg – Harrison Street Court

I HEARD a woman's lipsSpeaking to a companionSay these words:"A woman what hustlesNever keeps nothin'For all her hustlin'.Somebody always getsWhat she goes on the street for.If it ain't a pimpIt's a bull what gets it.I been hustlin' nowTill I ain't much good any more.I got nothin'...

Carl Sandburg – The Harbor

Passing through huddled and ugly walls,By doorways where women haggardLooked from their hunger-deep eyes,Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,Out from the huddled and ugly walls,I came sudden, at the city's edge,On a blue burst of lake,Long lake waves breaking under the sunOn a spray-flung...

Carl Sandburg – Fire Dreams

(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)I remember here by the fire,In the flickering reds and saffrons,They came in a ramshackle tub,Pilgrims in tall hats,Pilgrims of iron jaws,Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,And the random chapters sayThey were glad and sang to God.And...

Carl Sandburg – Paula

Nothing else in this song-only your face.Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes.The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel.I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings.It is not your eyes, your face, I remember.It is not your dancing, race-horse...

Carl Sandburg – Dream Girl

You will come one day in a waver of love,Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,The tan of the sun will be on your skin,The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,You will pose with a hill-flower grace.You will come, with your slim, expressive arms,A poise of the head no sculptor...

Carl Sandburg – Do You Want Affidavits

THERE'S a hole in the bottom of the sea.Do you want affidavits?There's a man in the moon with money for you.Do you want affidavits?There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you.There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you.There are-anything...

Carl Sandburg – Happiness

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them And then one Sunday afternoon...

Carl Sandburg – Waiting

Today I will let the old boat stand Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway. And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck Watching the world go by And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember. I will choose what clouds...

Carl Sandburg – Graceland

Tomb of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his...

Carl Sandburg – Doors

An open door says, “Come in.” A shut door says, “Who are you?” Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors. If a door is shut and you want it shut,      why open it? If a door is open and you want it open,      why shut it? Doors forget but...

Carl Sandburg – Cool Tombs

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin ... in the dust, in the cool tombs. And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes ... in the dust, in the cool tombs. Pocahontas’...

Carl Sandburg – Bronzes

I The bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln Park Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr by in long processions  going somewhere to keep apppointment for dinner and matineés and buying and selling Though in the dusk and nightfall when...

Carl Sandburg – Boy and Father

The boy Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer. The leather law books of Alexander’s father fill a room like hay in a barn. Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build,  a house with walls and roofs made of big leather...

Carl Sandburg – The Abracadabra Boys

The abracadabra boys—have they been in the stacks and cloisters? Have they picked up languages for throwing into chow mein poems? Have they been to a sea of jargons and brought back jargons? Their salutations go: Who cometh? and, It ith I cometh. They know postures from...

Carl Sandburg – Summer Stars

Bend low again, night of summer stars.So near you are, sky of summer stars, So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars, Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl, So near you are, summer stars, So near, strumming, strumming,          ...

Carl Sandburg – Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes.The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.The banjo tickles and titters too awful.The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.     The cartoonists weep in their beer.     Ship riveters...

Carl Sandburg – Wilderness

There is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess...