All Poems

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Ashurnatsirpal III

© Carl Sandburg

THREE walls around the town of Tela when I came.
They expected everything of those walls;
Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet.

Aprons of Silence

© Carl Sandburg

MANY things I might have said today.
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked
To come and say the same things

Anna Imroth

© Carl Sandburg

CROSS the hands over the breast here--so.
Straighten the legs a little more--so.
And call for the wagon to come and take her home.
Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and

And This Will be All?

© Carl Sandburg

AND this will be all?
And the gates will never open again?
And the dust and the wind will play around the rusty door hinges and the songs of October moan, Why-oh, why-oh?

And They Obey

© Carl Sandburg

SMASH down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
and homes

POLAND, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottles cork.

Wont you come and play wiz me she sang and I just cant make my eyes behave.

Among the Red Guns

© Carl Sandburg

AMONG the red guns,
In the hearts of soldiers
Running free blood
In the long, long campaign:
Dreams go on.

Always the Mob

© Carl Sandburg

JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.

The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.

All Day Long

© Carl Sandburg

ALL day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,

Alix

© Carl Sandburg

THE MARE Alix breaks the worlds trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old worlds record and a new worlds record fixed.

I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged.

Adelaide Crapsey

© Carl Sandburg

AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July,
I read your heart in a book.

And your mouth of blue pansyI know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.

A. E. F.

© Carl Sandburg

THERE will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it.
The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty.

A Teamster's Farewell

© Carl Sandburg

Sobs En Route to a PenitentiaryGOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and
locking hubs,
The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs.
The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy

A Tall Man

© Carl Sandburg

THE MOUTH of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.

The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.

A Million Young Workmen, 1915

A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands.
And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they hacked and tore each other to death.

A Coin

YOUR western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.

Boes

I WAITED today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
bars, went by.
And a half a dozen hoboes stood on bumpers between

Work Gangs

BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:

Wind Song

LONG ago I learned how to sleep,
In an old apple orchard where the wind swept by counting its money and throwing it away,
In a wind-gaunt orchard where the limbs forked out and listened or never listened at all,
In a passel of trees where the branches trapped the wind into whistling, Who, who are you?

Wilderness

THERE is a wolf in me fangs pointed for tearing gashes a red tongue for raw meat and the hot lapping of bloodI 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 I pick things out of the wind and air I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers I circle and loop and double-cross.