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").

Vaudeville Dancer

ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to TheLivery..

© Carl Sandburg

Valley Song

Your eyes and the valley are memories.Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl.It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline.It was here we turned the..

© Carl Sandburg

Upstream

The strong men keep coming on.They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken.They live on, fighting, singing, lucky as plungers.The strong men ... they keep..

© Carl Sandburg

Upstairs

I too have a garret of old playthings.I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs.I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs.I have guns and a..

© Carl Sandburg

Uplands In May

Wonder as of old thingsFresh and fair come backHangs over pasture and road.Lush in the lowland grasses riseAnd upland beckons to upland.The great..

© Carl Sandburg

Under The Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,When the soft silverDrips shimmeringOver the garden nights,Death, the gray mocker,Comes and whispers to youAs a beautiful..

© Carl Sandburg

Under A Telephone Pole

I am a copper wire slung in the air,Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow.Night and day I keep singing--humming and..

© Carl Sandburg

Under A Hat Rim

While the hum and the hurryOf passing footfallsBeat in my ear like the restless surfOf a wind-blown sea,A soul came to meOut of the look on a..

© Carl Sandburg

Under

II am the undertowWashing tides of powerBattering the pillarsUnder your things of high law.III am a sleeplessSlowfaring eater,Maker of rust and rotIn..

© Carl Sandburg

Two Strangers Breakfast

THE LAW says you and I belong to each other, George.The law says you are mine and I am yours, George.And there are a million miles of white..

© Carl Sandburg

Two Neighbors

Faces of two eternities keep looking at me.One is Omar Khayam and the red stuffwherein men forget yesterday and to-morrowand remember only the voices..

© Carl Sandburg

Two Items

STRONG rocks hold up the riksdag bridge ... always strong river waters shovingtheir shoulders against them ...In the riksdag to-night three hundred..

© Carl Sandburg

Two

Memory of you is . . . a blue spear of flower.I cannot remember the name of it.Alongside a bold dripping poppy is fire and silk.And they cove

© Carl Sandburg

Troths

Yellow dust on a bumblebee's wing,Grey lights in a woman'sasking eyes,Red ruins in the changingsunset embers:I take you and pile highthe..

© Carl Sandburg

Trinity Place

THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street..

© Carl Sandburg

Trafficker

Among the shadows where two streets cross,A woman lurks in the dark and waitsTo move on when a policeman heaves in view.Smiling a broken smile from a..

© Carl Sandburg

To Certain Journeymen

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..

© Carl Sandburg

To Beachey, 1912

Riding against the east,A veering, steady shadowPurrs the motor-callOf the man-birdReady with the death-laughterIn his throatAnd in his heart..

© Carl Sandburg

To A Dead Man

Over the dead line we have called to youTo come across with a word to us,Some beaten whisper of what happensWhere you are over the dead lineDeaf to..

© Carl Sandburg

To A Contemporary Bunkshooter

You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling aboutJesus.Where do you get that stuff?What do you know about Jesus?Jesus had a way of talking..

© Carl Sandburg

Timesweep

I was born in the morning of the world,So I know how morning looksmorning in the valley wanting,morning on a mountain wanting.Morning looks like..

© Carl Sandburg

Timber Wings

THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley's timber.Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel.There was a wild..

© Carl Sandburg

Throwbacks

SOMEWHERE you and I remember we came.Stairways from the sea and our heads dripping.Ladders of dust and mud and our hair snarled.Rags of drenching..

© Carl Sandburg

Throw Roses

THROW roses on the sea where the dead went down.The roses speak to the sea,And the sea to the dead.Throw roses, O lovers-Let the leaves wash on the..

© Carl Sandburg

Threes

I was a boy when I heard three red wordsa thousand Frenchmen died in the streetsfor: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity--I askedwhy men die for words.I..

© Carl Sandburg