The Sandburg Treasury

by Carl Sandburg

  The horses fathom a snow to their knees.

  Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.

  The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats.

  SONGS

  from PRAIRIE

  When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God’s Heaven.

  When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.

  When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: “Any new songs for me? Any new songs?”

  CORNFIELD RIDGE AND STREAM

  The top of the ridge is a cornfield.

  It rests all winter under snow.

  It feeds the broken snowdrifts in spring

  To a clear stream cutting down hill to the river.

  Late in summer the stream dries; rabbits run and birds hop along the dry mud bottom.

  Fall time comes and it fills with leaves; oaks and shagbark hickories drop their summer hats, ribbons, handkerchiefs.

  “This is how I keep warm all winter,” the stream murmurs, waiting till the snowdrifts melt and the ice loosens and the clear singing babble of spring comes back.

  Night

  NIGHT

  from THE WINDY CITY

  Night gathers itself into a ball of dark yarn.

  Night loosens the ball and it spreads.

  The lookouts from the shores of Lake Michigan find night follows day, and ping! ping! across sheet gray the boat lights put their signals.

  Night lets the dark yarn unravel, Night speaks and the yarns change to fog and blue strands.

  PRAIRIE WATERS BY NIGHT

  Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water—sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

  And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

  It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.

  TIMBER MOON

  There is a way the moon looks into the timber at night

  And tells the walnut trees secrets of silver sand—

  There is a way the moon makes a lattice work

  Under the leaves of the hazel bushes—

  There is a way the moon understands the hoot owl

  Sitting on an arm of a sugar maple throwing its

  One long lonesome cry up the ladders of the moon—

  There is a way the moon finds company early in the falltime.

  NIGHT TOO HAS NUMBERS

  from THE PEOPLE, YES

  In the long flat panhandle of Texas

  far off on the grassland of the cattle country

  near noon they sight a rider coming toward them

  and the sky may be a cold neverchanging gray

  or the sky may be changing its numbers

  back and forth all day even and odd numbers

  and the afternoon slides away somewhere

  and they see their rider is alive yet

  their rider is coming nearer yet

  and they expect what happens and it happens again

  he and his horse ride in late for supper

  yet not too late

  and night is on and the stars are out

  and night too slides away somewhere

  night too has even and odd numbers.

  RIVER MOONS

  The double moon, one on the high backdrop of the west, one on the curve of the river face,

  The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head.

  I saw them last night, a cradle moon, two horns of a moon, such an early hopeful moon, such a child’s moon for all young hearts to make a picture of.

  The river—I remember this like a picture—the river was the upper twist of a written question mark.

  I know now it takes many many years to write a river, a twist of water asking a question.

  And white stars moved when the moon moved, and one red star kept burning, and the Big Dipper was almost overhead.

  SLEEP IMPRESSION

  The dark blue wind of early autumn

  ran on the early autumn sky

  in the fields of yellow moon harvest.

  I slept, I almost slept,

  I said listening:

  Trees you have leaves rustling like rain

  When there is no rain.

  NOCTURNE IN A DESERTED BRICKYARD

  Stuff of the moon

  Runs on the lapping sand

  Out to the longest shadows.

  Under the curving willows,

  And round the creep of the wave line,

  Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters

  Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night.

  BETWEEN TWO HILLS

  Between two hills

  The old town stands.

  The houses loom

  And the roofs and trees

  And the dusk and the dark,

  The damp and the dew

  Are there.

  The prayers are said

  And the people rest

  For sleep is there

  And the touch of dreams

  Is over all.

  WINDOW

  Night from a railroad car window

  Is a great, dark, soft thing

  Broken across with slashes of light.

  PODS

  Pea pods cling to stems.

  Neponset, the village,

  Clings to the Burlington railway main line.

  Terrible midnight limiteds roar through

  Hauling sleepers to the Rockies and Sierras.

  The earth is slightly shaken

  And Neponset trembles slightly in its sleep.

  DROWSY

  Sleep is the gift of many spiders

  The webs tie down the sleepers easy.

  SHEEP

  Thousands of sheep, soft-footed, black-nosed sheep—one by one going up the hill and over the fence—one by one four-footed pattering up and over—one by one wiggling their stub tails as they take the short jump and go over—one by one silently unless for the multitudinous drumming of their hoofs as they move on and go over—thousands and thousands of them in the gray haze of evening just after sundown—one by one slanting in a long line to pass over the hill—

  I am the slow, long-legged Sleepyman and I love you sheep in Persia, California, Argentina, Australia, or Spain—you are the thoughts that help me when I, the Sleepyman, lay my hands on the eyelids of the children of the world at eight o’clock every night—you thousands and thousands of sheep in a procession of dusk making an endless multitudinous drumming on the hills with your hoofs.

  Blossom Themes

  BLOSSOM THEMES

  1

  Late in the winter came one day

  When there was a whiff on the wind,

  a suspicion, a cry not to be heard of perhaps blossoms, perhaps green grass and clean hills lifting rolling shoulders.

  Does the nose get the cry of spring first of all? is the nose thankful and thrilled first of all?

  2

  If the blossoms come down

  so they must fall on snow

  because spring comes this year

  before winter is gone,

  then both snow and blossoms look sad;

  peaches, cherries, the red summer apples,

  all say it is a hard year.

  The wind has its own way of picking off

  the smell of peach blossoms and then

  carrying that smell miles and miles.

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sp; Women washing dishes in lonely farmhouses stand at the door and say, “Something is happening.”

  A little foam of the summer sea

  of blossoms,

  a foam finger of white leaves,

  shut these away—

  high into the summer wind runners.

  Let the wind be white too.

  GRASSROOTS

  Grass clutches at the dark dirt with finger holds.

  Let it be blue grass, barley, rye or wheat,

  Let it be button weed or butter-and-eggs,

  Let it be Johnny-jump-ups springing clean blue streaks.

  Grassroots down under put fingers into dark dirt.

  LANDSCAPE

  See the trees lean to the wind’s way of learning.

  See the dirt of the hills shape to the water’s way of learning.

  See the lift of it all go the way the biggest wind and the strongest water want it.

  LITTLE SKETCH

  There are forked branches of trees

  Where the leaves shudder obediently,

  Where the hangover leaves

  Flow in a curve downward;

  And between the forks and leaves,

  In patches and angles, in square handfuls,

  The orange lights of the done sunset

  Come and filter and pour.

  FLOWERS TELL MONTHS

  Gold buttons in the garden today—

  Among the brown-eyed susans the golden spiders are gamboling.

  The blue sisters of the white asters speak to each other.

  After the travel of the snows—

  Buttercups come in a yellow rain,

  Johnny-jump-ups in a blue mist—

  Wild azaleas with a low spring cry.

  CRISSCROSS

  Spring crosses over into summer.

  This is as it always was.

  Buds on the redhaw, beetles in the loam,

  And the interference of the green leaves

  At the blue roofs of the spring sky

  Crossing over into summer—

  These are ways, this is out and on.

  This always was.

  The tumble out and the push up,

  The breaking of the little doors,

  The look again at the mother sun,

  The feel of the blue roofs over—

  This is summer? This always was?

  The whispering sprigs of buds stay put.

  The spiders are after the beetles.

  The farmer is driving a tractor turning furrows.

  The hired man drives a manure spreader.

  The oven bird hops in dry leaves.

  The woodpecker beats his tattoo.

  Is this it? Is spring crossing over?

  Is it summer? And this always was?

  The whispering pinks, the buds on the redhaw,

  The blue roofs of the sky . . . stay put.

  SUMMER GRASS

  Summer grass aches and whispers.

  It wants something; it calls and sings; it pours out wishes to the overhead stars.

  The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slow coming; the rain wets the face of the grass.

  RIVER ROADS

  Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.

  They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.

  Let ’em hawk their caw and caw.

  Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.

  He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years

  And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.

  Let his red head drum and drum.

  Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.

  And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.

  Let the redwing streak a line of vermilion on the green wood lines.

  And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman’s shawl on lazy shoulders.

  ON A RAILROAD RIGHT OF WAY

  Stream, go hide yourself.

  In the tall grass, in the cat-tails,

  In the browns of autumn, the last purple asters, the yellow whispers.

  On the moss rock levels leave the marks of your wave-lengths.

  Sing in your gravel, in your clean gully.

  Let the moaning railroad trains go by.

  Till they stop you, go on with your song.

  The minnies spin in the water gravel,

  In the spears of the early autumn sun.

  There must be winter fish.

  Babies, you will be jumping fish

  In the first snow month.

  CRABAPPLES

  Sweeten these bitter wild crabapples, Illinois

  October sun. The roots here came from the

  wilderness, came before man came here. They

  are bitter as the wild is bitter.

  Give these crabapples your softening gold,

  October sun, go through to the white wet

  seeds inside and soften them black. Make

  these bitter apples sweet. They want you, sun.

  The drop and the fall, the drop and the fall,

  the apples leaving the branches for the black

  earth under, they know you from last year,

  the year before last year, October sun.

  HAZE GOLD

  Sun, you may send your haze gold

  Filling the fall afternoon

  With a flimmer of many gold feathers.

  Leaves, you may linger in the fall sunset

  Like late lingering butterflies before frost.

  Treetops, you may sift the sunset cross-lights

  Spreading a loose checkerwork of gold and shadow.

  Winter comes soon—shall we save this, lay it by,

  Keep all we can of these haze gold yellows?

  WINTER GOLD

  The same gold of summer was on the winter hills,

  the oat straw gold, the gold of slow sun change.

  The stubble was chilly and lonesome,

  the stub feet clomb up the hills and stood.

  The flat cry of one wheeling crow faded and came,

  ran on the stub gold flats and faded and came.

  Fade-me, find-me, slow lights rang their changes

  on the flats of oat straw gold on winter hills.

  Wind, Sea, and Sky

  WINDS OF THE WINDY CITY

  from THE WINDY CITY

  Winds of the Windy City, come out of the prairie, all the way from Medicine Hat.

  Come out of the inland sea blue water, come where they nickname a city for you.

  Corn wind in the fall, come off the black lands, come off the whisper of the silk hangers, the lap of the flat spear leaves.

  Blue water wind in summer, come off the blue miles of lake, carry your inland sea blue fingers, carry us cool, carry your blue to our homes.

  White spring winds, come off the bag wool clouds, come off the running melted snow, come white as the arms of snow-born children.

  Gray fighting winter winds, come along on the tearing blizzard tails, the snouts of the hungry hunting storms, come fighting gray in winter.

  Winds of the Windy City,

  Winds of corn and sea blue,

  Spring wind white and fighting winter gray,

  Come home here—they nickname a city for you.

  CHILDREN OF THE WIND

  from THE PEOPLE, YES

  On the shores of Lake Michigan

  high on a wooden pole, in a box,

  two purple martins had a home

  and taken away down to Martinique

  and let loose, they flew home,

  thousands of miles to be home again.

  And this has lights of wonder

  echo and pace and echo again.

  The birds let out began flying

  north north-by-west north

  till they were back home.

  How their instruments told them

  of ceiling, temperature, air pressure,
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  how their control-boards gave them

  reports of fuel, ignition, speeds,

  is out of the record, out.

  Across spaces of sun and cloud,

  in rain and fog, through air pockets,

  wind with them, wind against them,

  stopping for subsistence rations,

  whirling in gust and spiral,

  these people of the air,

  these children of the wind,

  had a sense of where to go and how,

  how to go north north-by-west north,

  till they came to one wooden pole,

  till they were home again.

  DOCKS

  Strolling along

  By the teeming docks,

  I watch the ships put out.

  Black ships that heave and lunge

  And move like mastodons

  Arising from lethargic sleep.

  The fathomed harbor

  Calls them not nor dares

  Them to a strain of action,

  But outward, on and outward,

  Sounding low-reverberating calls,

  Shaggy in the half-lit distance,

  They pass the pointed headland,

  View the wide, far-lifting wilderness