Poem - "The Plowboy" by Carl Sandburg

"The Plowboy" 

by Carl Sandburg

AFTER the last red sunset glimmer,

Black on the line of a low hill rise,

Formed into moving shadows, I saw

A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,

Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.

The turf had a gleam of brown,

And smell of soil was in the air,

And, cool and moist, a haze of April.

Poem - "The Noon Hour" by Carl Sandburg

"The Noon Hour" 

by Carl Sandburg

SHE sits in the dust at the walls

And makes cigars,

Bending at the bench

With fingers wage-anxious,

Changing her sweat for the day's pay.

Now the noon hour has come,

And she leans with her bare arms

On the window-sill over the river,

Leans and feels at her throat

Cool-moving things out of the free open ways:

Poem - "The Liars" by Carl Sandburg

"The Liars" 

by Carl Sandburg

(March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes.

A liar goes in rags.

A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.

A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.

And the stonecutters earn a living—with lies—on the tombs of liars.

Aliar looks ’em in the eye

And lies to a woman,

Lies to a man, a pal, a child, a fool.

And he is an old liar; we know him many years back.

Poem - "The Year" by Carl Sandburg

"The Year" 

by Carl Sandburg

IA STORM of white petals,

Buds throwing open baby fists

Into hands of broad flowers.

IIRed roses running upward,

Clambering to the clutches of life

Soaked in crimson.

IIIRabbles of tattered leaves

Holding golden flimsy hopes

Against the tramplings

Into the pits and gullies.

Poem - "To Certain Journeymen" by Carl Sandburg

"To Certain Journeymen" 

by Carl Sandburg

UNDERTAKERS, hearse drivers, grave diggers,

I speak to you as one not afraid of your business.

You handle dust going to a long country,

You know the secret behind your job is the same whether

you lower the coffin with modern, automatic machinery,

well-oiled and noiseless, or whether the

body is laid in by naked hands and then covered

by the shovels.

Poem - "They Will Say" by Carl Sandburg

"They Will Say" 

by Carl Sandburg

OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this:

You took little children away from the sun and the dew,

And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,

Poem - "The Walking Man of Rodin" by Carl Sandburg

"The Walking Man of Rodin" 

by Carl Sandburg

LEGS hold a torso away from the earth.

And a regular high poem of legs is here.

Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs

Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear

And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors.

Poem - "The Right to Grief" by Carl Sandburg

"The Right to Grief" 

by Carl Sandburg

To Certain Poets About to Die

TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,

Over the dead child of a millionaire,

And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank

Which the millionaire might order his secretary to

scratch off

And get cashed.

Poem - "The Sea Hold" by Carl Sandburg

"The Sea Hold" 

by Carl Sandburg

THE SEA is large.

The sea hold on a leg of land in the Chesapeake hugs an early sunset and a last morning star over the oyster beds and the late clam boats of lonely men.

Five white houses on a half-mile strip of land … five white dice rolled from a tube.

Not so long ago … the sea was large…

And to-day the sea has lost nothing … it keeps all.