MILL-DOORS

YOU never come back.
I say good-by when I see you going in the doors,
The hopeless open doors that call and wait
And take you then for--how many cents a day?
How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers?

I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists,
In the dark, in the silence, day by day,
And all the blood of you drop by drop,
And you are old before you are young.
You never come back.

More poems by Carl Sandburg

THE MIST

I AM the mist, the impalpable mist, / Back of the thing you seek.

Carl Sandburg

STATISTICS

NAPOLEON shifted, / Restless in the old sarcophagus

Carl Sandburg

AMONG THE RED GUNS

After waking at dawn one morning when the wind sang / low among dry leaves in an elm

Carl Sandburg

WARS

IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. / In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.

Carl Sandburg

All poems by Carl Sandburg →