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Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Goldwing Moth

A GOLDWING moth is between the scissors and the ink bottle on the desk.  
Last night it flew hundreds of circles around a glass bulb and a flame wire.  
The wings are a soft gold; it is the gold of illuminated initials in manuscripts of the medieval monks.

Cornhuskers. 1918.

#Americans

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Other works by Carl Sandburg...
In the Shadow of the Palace

LET us go out of the fog, John,… Let us sit among the telegrams-cli… It is a fog night out and the umbr… Here the telegrams come-one king g… Let us go out in the fog, John, l…
Among the Red Guns

AMONG the red guns, In the hearts of soldiers Running free blood In the long, long campaign: Dreams go on.
Allegory of Arithmetic, by Laurent de La Hyre
Arithmetic

Arithmetic is where numbers fly li… head. Arithmetic tells you how many you… how many you had before you lost o… Arithmetic is seven eleven all goo…
Mill-Doors

YOU never come back. I say good-by when I see you goin… The hopeless open doors that call… And take you then for—how many cen… How many cents for the sleepy eyes…
Fellow Citizens

I DRANK musty ale at the Illino… the millionaire manufacturer of Gr… one night And his face had the shining light… he spoke of a beautiful daughter,…
Places

ROSES and gold For you today, And the flash of flying flags. I will have Ashes,
The Has-Been

A STONE face higher than six ho… years gazing at the world seeming… A boy passes and throws a niggerhe… end of the nose from the stone fac… mud ball that spatters the right e…
Ashurnatsirpal III

THREE walls around the town of… They expected everything of those… Nobody in the town came out to kis… I knocked the walls down, killed t… Took away cattle and sheep, took a…
Fish Crier

I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on… voice like a north wind blowing ov… in January. He dangles herring before prospect… a joy identical with that of Pavlo…
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 . . .
 1
Aprons of Silence

Many things I might have said tod… And I kept my mouth shut. So many times I was asked To come and say the same things Everybody was saying, no end
Localities

Wagon wheel gap is a place I neve… And Red Horse Gulch and the chut… Red-shirted miners picking in the… Gamblers with red neckties in the… The fly-by-night towns of Bull Fr…
Portrait of a Motor Car

IT’S a lean car … a long-legged d… The feet of it eat the dirt of a r… Danny the driver dreams of it when… It is in Danny’s life and runs in…
White Shoulders

YOUR white shoulders I remember And your shrug of laughter. Low laughter Shaken slow
Loam

In the loam we sleep, In the cool moist loam, To the lull of years that pass And the break of stars, From the loam, then,



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