Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
The Junk Man
I am glad God saw DeathAnd gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired of living:When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and the..
© Carl Sandburg
The Has-Been
A stone face higher than six horses stood five thousand years gazing at the worldseeming to clutch a secret.A boy passes and throws a niggerhead that..
© Carl Sandburg
The Harbor
Passing through huddled and ugly wallsBy doorways where womenLooked from their hunger-deep eyes,Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,Out from the..
© Carl Sandburg
The Hangman At Home
What does a hangman think aboutWhen he goes home at night from work?When he sits down with his wife andChildren for a cup of coffee and aPlate of ham..
© Carl Sandburg
The Hammer
I have seenThe old gods goAnd the new gods come.Day by dayAnd year by yearThe idols fallAnd the idols rise.TodayI worship the hammer.
© Carl Sandburg
The Great Hunt
I cannot tell you now;When the wind’s drive and whirlBlow me along no longer,And the wind’s a whisper at last—Maybe I’ll tell you then—some other..
© Carl Sandburg
The Four Brothers
MAKE war songs out of these;Make chants that repeat and weave.Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of the machine guns;Make slow-booming psalms up..
© Carl Sandburg
The Answer
You have spoken the answer.A child searches far sometimesInto the red dustOn a dark rose leafAnd so you have gone farFor the answer is:Silence.In the..
© Carl Sandburg
Testimony Regarding A Ghost
THE ROSES slanted crimson sobsOn the night sky hair of the women,And the long light-fingered menSpoke to the dark-haired women,'Nothing lovelier..
© Carl Sandburg
Testament
I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my bodyto the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, thefeet, the hands, all: I know there is something..
© Carl Sandburg
Telegram
I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk. And the littlescrap of paper charged the air like a set of crystals in a chemist's tube to..
© Carl Sandburg
Tawny
THESE are the tawny days: your face comes back.The grapes take on purple: the sunsets redden early on the trellis.The bashful mornings hurl gray mist..
© Carl Sandburg
Tangibles
(Washington, August, 1918)I HAVE seen this city in the day and the sun.I have seen this city in the night and the moon.And in the night and the moon..
© Carl Sandburg
Swirl
A SWIRL in the air where your head was once, here.You walked under this tree, spoke to a moon for meI might almost stand here and believe you alive.
© Carl Sandburg
Sunset From Omaha Hotel Window
Into the blue river hillsThe red sun runners goAnd the long sand changesAnd to-day is a gonerAnd to-day is not worth haggling over.Here in OmahaThe..
© 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..
© Carl Sandburg
Subway
Down between the walls of shadowWhere the iron laws insist,The hunger voices mock.The worn wayfaring menWith the hunched and humble shoulders,Throw..
© Carl Sandburg
Style
Style--go ahead talking about style.You can tell where a man gets his style justas you can tell where Pavlowa got her legsor Ty Cobb his batting..
© Carl Sandburg
Stripes
POLICEMAN in front of a bank 3 A.M. ... lonely.Policeman State and Madison ... high noon ... mobs ... cars ... parcels ... lonely.Woman in suburbs..
© Carl Sandburg
Street Window
The pawn-shop man knows hunger,And how far hunger has eaten the heartOf one who comes with an old keepsake.Here are wedding rings and baby..
© Carl Sandburg
Still Life
COOL your heels on the rail of an observation car.Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.Take in the prairie right and left, rolling..
© Carl Sandburg
Statistics
Napoleon shifted,Restless in the old sarcophagusAnd murmured to a watchguard:"Who goes there?""Twenty-one million men,Soldiers, armies..
© Carl Sandburg
Stars, Songs, Faces
Gather the stars if you wish it so.Gather the songs and keep them.Gather the faces of women.Gather for keeping years and years.And then . . .Loosen..
© Carl Sandburg
Splinter
The voice of the last cricketacross the first frostis one kind of good-by.It is so thin a splinter of singing.
© Carl Sandburg
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..
© Carl Sandburg