(6 January 1878 – 22 July 1967 / Illinois)

poet Carl Sandburg
#38 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''There will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
    The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
    A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest
    corner of it.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. A. E. F. (l. 1-3). . . Modern American & British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed., in consultation with Karl Shapiro and Richard Wilbur. (Rev., shorter ed., 1955) Harcourt, Brace and Company.
    187 person liked.
    		106 person did not like.
  • ''The buffaloes are gone.
    And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Buffalo Dusk (l. 1-2). . . Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America, The. Donald Hall, ed. (1985) Oxford University Press.
    187 person liked.
    		94 person did not like.
  • ''And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
    women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
    And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this
    my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
    Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to
    be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Chicago (l. 10-12). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    132 person liked.
    		75 person did not like.
  • ''Hog Butcher for the World,
    Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
    Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
    Stormy, husky, brawling,
    City of the Big Shoulders.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. "Chicago," Chicago Poems (1916).
    129 person liked.
    		80 person did not like.
  • ''tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more
    than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Cool Tombs (l. 4). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    15 person liked.
    		9 person did not like.
  • ''Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in
    November''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Cool Tombs (l. 3). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.
    13 person liked.
    		7 person did not like.
  • ''The woman named Tomorrow
    sits with a hairpin in her teeth
    and takes her time''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind (l. 1-3). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.
    17 person liked.
    		6 person did not like.
  • ''and the girls chanted:
    We are the greatest city,
    and the greatest nation:
    nothing like us ever was.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind (l. 13-16). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.
    15 person liked.
    		5 person did not like.
  • ''The feet of the rats
    scribble on the doorsills;
    the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
    chatter the pedigrees of the rats''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind (l. 50-53). . . New Oxford Book of American Verse, The. Richard Ellmann, ed. (1976) Oxford University Press.
    17 person liked.
    		5 person did not like.
  • ''Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
    Shovel them under and let me work—
    I am the grass; I cover all.''
    Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Grass (l. 1-3). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.
    18 person liked.
    		6 person did not like.

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Window

Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.

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