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FOUR POEMS
BY CARL SANDBURG
HATS
Hats, where do you belong?
what is under you?
what is under you?
On the rim of a skyscraper's forehead
I looked down and saw: hats: fifty thousand hats:
Swarming with a noise of bees and sheep, cattle and waterfalls,
Stopping with a silence of sea grass, a silence of prairie corn.
I looked down and saw: hats: fifty thousand hats:
Swarming with a noise of bees and sheep, cattle and waterfalls,
Stopping with a silence of sea grass, a silence of prairie corn.
Hats : tell me your high hopes.
PENNSYLVANIA
I have been in Pennsylvania,
In the Monongahela and the Hocking Valleys.
In the Monongahela and the Hocking Valleys.
In the blue Susquehanna
On a Saturday morning
I saw the mounted constabulary go by,
I saw boys playing marbles.
Spring and the hills laughed.
On a Saturday morning
I saw the mounted constabulary go by,
I saw boys playing marbles.
Spring and the hills laughed.
And in places
Along the Appalachian chain,
I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
Of miners' wives waiting for the men to come
home from the day's work.
Along the Appalachian chain,
I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
Of miners' wives waiting for the men to come
home from the day's work.
I made colour studies in crimson and violet
Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.
Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.
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BROKEN-FACE GARGOYLES
All I can give you is broken-face gargoyles.
It is too early to sing and dance at funerals,
Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker hum-
ming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-
and-wing, now you see it and now you don't.
It is too early to sing and dance at funerals,
Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker hum-
ming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-
and-wing, now you see it and now you don't.
Fish to swim a pool in your garden flashing a speckled silver,
A basket of wine-saps filling your room with flame-dark for your
eyes and the tang of valley orchards for your nose,
Such a beautiful pail of fish, such a beautiful peck of apples,
I cannot bring you now.
It is too early and I am not footloose yet.
A basket of wine-saps filling your room with flame-dark for your
eyes and the tang of valley orchards for your nose,
Such a beautiful pail of fish, such a beautiful peck of apples,
I cannot bring you now.
It is too early and I am not footloose yet.
I shall come in the night when I come with a hammer and saw.
I shall come near your window, where you look out when your eyes
open in the morning,
And there I shall slam together bird-houses and bird-baths for wing-
loose wrens and hummers to live in, birds with yellow wing tips to
blur and buzz soft all summer,
So I shall make little fool homes with doors, always open doors for
all and each to run away when they want to.
I shall come just like that even though now it is early and I am not
yet footloose,
Even though I am still looking for an undertaker with a raw, wind-
bitten face and a dance in his feet.
I make a date with you (put it down) for six o'clock in the evening
a thousand years from now.
I shall come near your window, where you look out when your eyes
open in the morning,
And there I shall slam together bird-houses and bird-baths for wing-
loose wrens and hummers to live in, birds with yellow wing tips to
blur and buzz soft all summer,
So I shall make little fool homes with doors, always open doors for
all and each to run away when they want to.
I shall come just like that even though now it is early and I am not
yet footloose,
Even though I am still looking for an undertaker with a raw, wind-
bitten face and a dance in his feet.
I make a date with you (put it down) for six o'clock in the evening
a thousand years from now.
All I can give you now is broken-face gargoyles.
All I can give you now is a double gorilla head with two fish mouths
and four eagle eyes hooked on a street wall, spouting water and
looking two ways to the ends of the street for the new people, the
young strangers, coming, coming, always coming.
All I can give you now is a double gorilla head with two fish mouths
and four eagle eyes hooked on a street wall, spouting water and
looking two ways to the ends of the street for the new people, the
young strangers, coming, coming, always coming.
It is early.
I shall yet be footloose.
I shall yet be footloose.
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JAZZ FANTASIA
[Description: Image of page 294]
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a
racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!
you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns,
tin cans—make two people fight on the top of a stairway
and scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down
the stairs.
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a
racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!
you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns,
tin cans—make two people fight on the top of a stairway
and scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down
the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes
up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green
lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides
on the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it, O jazzmen.
up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green
lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides
on the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it, O jazzmen.
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