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Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

A Sphinx

CLOSE-MOUTHED you sat five thousand years and never
    let out a whisper.
Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you
    answered with grey eyes never blinking, shut lips
    never talking.
Not one croak of anything you know has come from your
    cat crouch of ages.
I am one of those who know all you know and I keep my
    questions: I know the answers you hold.

#AmericanWriters

Other works by Carl Sandburg...
Onion Days

MRS. GABRIELLE GIOVANNI… every morning at nine o’clock With kindling wood piled on top of… looking straight ahead to find the… Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro…
Last Answers

I WROTE a poem on the mist And a woman asked me what I meant… I had thought till then only of th… how pearl and gray of it mix and r… And change the drab shanties with…
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 ro...
Never Born

THE TIME has gone by. The child is dead. The child was never even born. Why go on? Why so much as begin? How can we turn the clock back now
Excerp From the People, Yes

The little girl saw her first troo… ‘What are those?’ ‘Soldiers.’ ‘What are soldiers?’ ‘They are for war. They fight and…
 1
Winter Milk

THE MILK drops on your chin, H… Must not interfere with the cranbe… Nor the sky winter blue of your ey… Let your mammy keep hands off the… This is a high holy spatter of whi…
Hydrangeas

DRAGOONS, I tell you the white… turn rust and go soon. Already mid September a line of b… over them. One sunset after another tracks th…
Hate

ONE man killed another. The sayi… The killer wept over the dead. Th… Why is the sun a red ball in the s… Why is the moon a tumbling chimney…
Clinton South of Polk

I WANDER down on Clinton stree… And listen to the voices of Itali… It is a cataract of coloratura And I could sleep to their musica…
Night Stuff

LISTEN a while, the moon is a l… Listen a while, the lake by night… I know the moon and the lake have…
Personality

YOU have loved forty women, but y… You have led a hundred secret live… one thumb. You go round the world and fight i… win all the world’s honors, but wh…
Baby Face

WHITE MOON comes in on a baby… The shafts across her bed are flim… Out on the land White Moon shines… Shines and glimmers against gnarle… All silver to slow twisted shadows
Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs

My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin-honey-and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eg...
Potomac Town in February

THE BRIDGE says: Come across,… The big rock in the river says: L… The white water says: I go on; ar… A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I… A sliver of moon slides by on a hi…
Hoodlums

I AM a hoodlum, you are a hoodlum… I hate and kill better men than I… In the ends of my fingers the itch… This is the hate my father gave me… Let us go on, brother hoodlums, le…



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