IRON
GUNS, / Long, steel guns,
AND THEY OBEY
❦
SMASH down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
and homes
Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black
burnt wood:
You are the soldiers and we command you.
Build up the cities.
Set up the walls again.
Put together once more the factories and cathedrals,
warehouses and homes
Into buildings for life and labor:
You are workmen and citizens all: We
command you.
More poems by Carl Sandburg
JOY
LET a joy keep you. / Reach out your hands
AMONG THE RED GUNS
After waking at dawn one morning when the wind sang / low among dry leaves in an elm
THEY WILL SAY
OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this: / You took little children away from the sun and the dew,