Sunday night and the park policemen tell each other it
is dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan.
A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from the peach
farms of Saugatuck.
Hundreds of electric bulbs break the night's darkness, a
flock of red and yellow birds with wings at a standstill.
Running along the deck railings are festoons and leaping
in curves are loops of light from prow and stern
to the tall smokestacks.
Over the hoarse crunch of waves at my pier comes a
hoarse answer in the rhythmic oompa of the brasses
playing a Polish folk-song for the home-comers.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Here, summertime evening changes from black and bleak to light and fun - such delight there is in the picnic boat filled with color, decoration, music, joy, and dancing. This poem is full of memories of countryside. (Several Sandburg poems celebrate the joy of Polish gatherings and celebrations.)