Cornhuskers

Front matter

CORNHUSKERS

BY

CARL SANDBURG

A Million Young Workmen, 1915

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 roses.

Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands.

And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they hacked and tore each other to death.

The kings are grinning, the kaiser and the czar—they are alive riding in leather-seated motor cars, and they have their women and roses for ease, and they eat fresh-poached eggs for breakfast, new butter on toast, sitting in tall water-tight houses reading the news of war.

I dreamed a million ghosts of the young workmen rose in their shirts all soaked in crimson...and yelled:

God damn the grinning kings, God damn the kaiser and the czar.

Chicago, 1915.

A Tall Man

A TALL MAN

The mouth of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.

The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.

The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.

The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans,

Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown.

The neck of this man is pith of buffalo prairie, old longing and new beckoning of corn belt or cotton belt,

Either a proud Sequoia trunk of the wilderness

Or huddling lumber of a sawmill waiting to be a roof.

Brother mystery to man and mob mystery.

Brother cryptic to lifted cryptic hands,

He is night and abyss, he is white sky of sun, he is the head of the people.

The heart of him the red drops of the people,

The wish of him the steady gray-eagle crag-hunting flights of the people.

Humble dust of a wheel-worn road.

Slashed sod under the iron-shining plow,

These of service in him, these and many cities, many borders, many wrangles between Alaska and the Isthmus, between the Isthmus and the Horn, and east and west of Omaha, and east and west of Paris, Berlin, Petrograd.

The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist wisdom of the many.

It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many.

Adelaide Crapsey

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

Among the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July.

I read your heart in a book.

And your mouth of blue pansy—I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.

And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held there listening to the sea, the great naked sea shouldering a load of salt.

And the blue pansy mouth sang to the sea:

Mother of God, I'm so little a thing,

Let me sing longer,

Only a little longer.

And the sea shouldered its salt in long gray combers hauling new shapes on the beach sand.

Alix

ALIX

The mare Alix breaks the world's trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old world's record and a new world's record fixed.

I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged.

I see the grand stand jammed with prairie people yelling themselves hoarse. Almost the grand stand and the crowd of thousands are one pair of legs and one voice standing up and yelling hurrah.

I see the driver of Alix and the owner smothered in a fury of handshakes, a mob of caresses. I see the wives of the driver and owner smothered in a crush of white summer dresses and parasols.

Hours later, at sundown, gray dew creeping on the sod and sheds, I see Alix again:

Dark, shining-velvet Alix,

Night-sky Alix in a gray blanket,

Led back and forth by a nigger.

Velvet and night-eyed Alix

With slim legs of steel.

And I want to rub my nose against the nose of the mare Alix.

Always the Mob

ALWAYS THE MOB

Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.

The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering four-footed in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.

Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.

Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.

The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.

Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.

Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Wool on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.

The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.

The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...

The mob...kills or builds...the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.

I am born in the mob—I die in the mob—the same goes for you—I don't care who you are.

I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother—I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother—I die for you and I kill you—It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:

One more arch of stars,

In the night of our mist,

In the night of our tears.

Ashurnatsirpal III

ASHURNATSIRPAL III

(From Babylonian tablet, 4,000 years Before Christ)

Three walls around the town of Tela when I came.

They expected everything of those walls;

Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet.

I knocked the walls down, killed three thousand soldiers,

Took away cattle and sheep, took all the loot in sight,

And burned special captives.

Some of the soldiers—I cut off hands and feet.

Others—I cut off ears and fingers.

Some—I put out the eyes.

I made a pyramid of heads.

I strung heads on trees circling the town.

When I got through with it

There wasn't much left of the town of Tela.

Autumn Movement

AUTUMN MOVEMENT

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

Baby Face

BABY FACE

White Moon comes in on a baby face.

The shafts across her bed are flimmering.

Out on the land White Moon shines,

Shines and glimmers against gnarled shadows,

All silver to slow twisted shadows

Falling across the long road that runs from the house.

Keep a little of your beauty

And some of your flimmering silver

For her by the window to-night

Where you come in, White Moon.

Band Concert

BAND CONCERT

Band concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.

Cowboy rags and nigger rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the comet staccato and the tuba oompa, gigglers, God knows, gigglers daffy with life's razzle dazzle.

Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor—a giggler, God knows, a giggler—and the summer- white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.

The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the story.

Bilbea

BILBEA

(From tablet writing, Babylonian excavations of 4th millennium B.C.)

Bilbea, I was in Babylon on Saturday night.

I saw nothing of you anywhere.

I was at the old place and the other girls were there, but no Bilbea.

Have you gone to another house? or city?

Why don't you write?

I was sorry. I walked home half-sick.

Tell me how it goes.

Send me some kind of a letter.

And take care of yourself.

Blizzard Notes

BLIZZARD NOTES

I don't blame the kettle drums—they are hungry.

And the snare drums—I know what they want—they are empty too.

And the harring booming bass drums—they are hungriest of all.

The howling spears of the Northwest die down.

The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song.

A cradle moon rides out of a torn hole in the ragbag top of the sky.

Bricklayer Love

BRICKLAYER LOVE

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.

I don't care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons.

When the sun is in my eyes and the ladders are shaky and the mortar boards go wrong, I think of you.

Bringers

BRINGERS

Cover me over

In dusk and dust and dreams.

Cover me over

And leave me alone.

Cover me over,

You tireless, great.

Hear me and cover me,

Bringers of dusk and dust and dreams.

Buffalo Bill

BUFFALO BILL

Boy heart of Johnny Jones—aching to-day?

Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town?

Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians?

Some of us know

All about it, Johnny Jones.

Buffalo Bill is a slanting look of the eyes,

A slanting look under a hat on a horse.

He sits on a horse and a passing look is fixed

On Johnny Jones, you and me, barelegged,

A slanting, passing, careless look under a hat on a horse.

Go clickety-clack, O pony hoofs along the street.

Come on and slant your eyes again, O Buffalo Bill.

Give us again the ache of our boy hearts.

Fill us again with the red love of prairies, dark nights, lonely wagons, and the crack-crack of rifles sputtering flashes into an ambush.

Caboose Thoughts

CABOOSE THOUGHTS

It's going to come out all right—do you know?

The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.

They get along—and we'll get along.

Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting

And the letter you wait for won't come,

And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray

And the letter I wait for won't come.

There will be ac-ci-dents.

I know ac-ci-dents are coming.

Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,

Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.

But somehow and somewhere the end of the run

The train gets put together again

And the caboose and the green tail lights

Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.

I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky

Spilling its heart in the morning.

I never saw the snow on Chimborazo.

It's a high white Mexican hat, I hear.

I never had supper with Abe Lincoln.

Nor a dish of soup with Jim Hill.

But I've been around.

I know some of the boys here who can go a little.

I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.

I heard Williams and Walker

Before Walker died in the bughouse.

I knew a mandolin player

Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,

And he thought he had a million dollars.

I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.

She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself

The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.

I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.

We took away the money for a prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance.

She had eyes; she was safe as the bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.

Last summer we took the cushions going west.

Pike's Peak is a big old stone, believe me.

It's fastened down; something you can count on.

It's going to come out all right—do you know?

The sun, the birds, the grass—they know.

They get along—and we'll get along.

Cartoon

CARTOON

I am making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People. She is the Great Dirty Mother.

And Many Children hang on her Apron, crawl at her Feet, snuggle at her Breasts.

Chicago Poet

CHICAGO POET

I saluted a nobody.

I saw him in a looking-glass.

He smiled—so did I.

He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning—so did I.

Everything I did he did.

I said, "Hello, I know you."

And I was a liar to say so.

Ah, this looking-glass man!

Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor,

Soldier, dusty drinker of dust—

Ah! he will go with me

Down the dark stairway

When nobody else is looking,

When everybody else is gone.

He locks his elbow in mine,

I lose all—but not him.

Chicks

CHICKS

The chick in the egg picks at the shell, cracks open one oval world, and enters another oval world.

"Cheep...cheep...cheep" is the salutation of the newcomer, the emigrant, the casual at the gates of the new world.

"Cheep...cheep"...from oval to oval, sunset to sunset, star to star.

It is at the door of this house, this teeny weeny eggshell exit, it is here men say a riddle and jeer each other: who are you? where do you go from here?

(In the academies many books, at the circus many sacks of peanuts, at the club rooms many cigar butts.)

"Cheep...cheep"...from oval to oval, sunset to sunset, star to star.

Child Margaret

CHILD MARGARET

The child Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers.

All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child's room.

Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps.

The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps.

All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a hump on its back and 8 is knock-kneed.

The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8.

(Each number is a bran-new rag doll...O in the wishing fingers...millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!)

Clocks

CLOCKS

Here is a face that says half-past seven the same way whether a murder or a wedding goes on, whether a funeral or a picnic crowd passes.

A tall one I know at the end of a hallway broods in shadows and is watching booze eat out the insides of the man of the house; it has seen five hopes go in five years: one woman, one child, and three dreams.

A little one carried in a leather box by an actress rides with her to hotels and is under her pillow in a sleeping-car between one-night stands.

One hoists a phiz over a railroad station; it points numbers to people a quarter-mile away who believe it when other clocks fail.

And of course...there are wrist watches over the pulses of airmen eager to go to France...

Cool Tombs

COOL TOMBS

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin...in the dust, in the cool tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes...in the dust, in the cool tombs.

Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember?...in the dust, in the cool tombs?

Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns...tell me if the lovers are losers...tell me if any get more than the lovers...in the dust...in the cool tombs.

Crimson Rambler

CRIMSON RAMBLER

Now that a crimson rambler

begins to crawl over the house

of our two lives—

Now that a red curve

winds across the shingles—

Now that hands

washed in early sunrises

climb and spill scarlet

on a white lattice weave—

Now that a loop of blood

is written on our roof

and reaching around a chimney—

How are the two lives of this house

to keep strong hands and strong hearts?

Drumnotes

DRUMNOTES

Days of the dead men, Danny.

Drum for the dead, drum on your

remembering heart.

Jaurès, a great love-heart of France,

a slug of lead in the red valves.

Kitchener of Khartoum, tall, cold, proud,

a shark's mouthful.

Franz Josef, the old man of forty haunted

kingdoms, in a tomb with the Hapsburg

fathers, moths eating a green uniform

to tatters, worms taking all and leaving

only bones and gold buttons, bones and

iron crosses.

Jack London, Jim Riley, Verhaeren, riders to

the republic of dreams.

Days of the dead, Danny.

Drum on your remembering heart.

Early Moon

EARLY MOON

The baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west.

A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon.

One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers.

O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams.

Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West?

Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?—no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail?

Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west?

end matter

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Falltime

FALLTIME

Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,

Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,

Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,

Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,

Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,

Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?

What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds, crying down on the north wind in September, acres of birds spotting the air going south?

Is there something finished? And some new beginning on the way?

Films

FILMS

I have kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a corner with a "P-f-f."

The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones.

Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again.

They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October,

Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow.

Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes,

O there shall be no ragman have these yet a year, yet ten years.

Fire Dreams

FIRE DREAMS

(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)

I remember here by the fire,

In the flickering reds and saffrons,

They came in a ramshackle tub,

Pilgrims in tall hats,

Pilgrims of iron jaws,

Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,

And the random chapters say

They were glad and sang to God.

And so

Since the iron-jawed men sat down

And said, "Thanks, O God,"

For life and soup and a little less

Than a hobo handout to-day,

Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,

Since the iron-jawed men sang "Thanks, O God,"

You and I, O Child of the West,

Remember more than ever

November and the hunter^s moon,

November and the yellow-spotted hills.

And so

In the name of the iron-jawed men

I will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.

God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,

God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,

I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: "Thanks, O God."

Fire-Logs

FIRE-LOGS

Nancy Hanks dreams by the fire;

Dreams, and the logs sputter,

And the yellow tongues climb.

Red lines lick their way in flickers.

Oh, sputter, logs.

Oh, dream, Nancy.

Time now for a beautiful child.

Time now for a tall man to come.

Flanders

FLANDERS

Flanders, the name of a place, a country of people,

Spells itself with letters, is written in books.

"Where is Flanders?" was asked one time,

Flanders known only to those who lived there

And milked cows and made cheese and spoke the home language.

"Where is Flanders?" was asked.

And the slang adepts shot the reply: Search me.

A few thousand people milking cows, raising radishes,

On a land of salt grass and dunes, sand-swept with a sea-breath on it:

This was Flanders, the unknown, the quiet,

The place where cows hunted lush cuds of green on lowlands,

And the raw-boned plowmen took horses with long shanks

Out in the dawn to the sea-breath.

Flanders sat slow-spoken amid slow-swung windmills,

Slow-circling windmill arms turning north or west,

Turning to talk to the swaggering winds, the childish winds,

So Flanders sat with the heart of a kitchen girl

Washing wooden bowls in the winter sun by a window.