Poem - "Choices" by Carl Sandburg

"Choices" 
by Carl Sandburg


They offer you many things,

I a few.

Moonlight on the play of fountains at night

With water sparkling a drowsy monotone,

Bare-shouldered, smiling women and talk

And a cross-play of loves and adulteries

And a fear of death and a remembering of regrets:

All this they offer you.

I come with:

salt and bread

a terrible job of work

and tireless war;

Come and have now:

hunger.

danger

and hate.