all mown, But he had gone his way, the grass "As all must be," I said within my heart, But as I said it, swift there passed me by Seeking with memories grown dim over night And once I marked his flight go round and round, And then he flew as far as eye could see, I thought of questions that have no reply, But he turned first, and led my eye to look A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared I left my place to know them by their name, The mower in the dew had loved them thus, Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him, The butterfly and I had lit upon, That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. "Men work together," I told him from the heart, "Whether they work together or apart." BLUE-BUTTERFLY DAY It is blue-butterfly day here in spring, And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry, There is more unmixed color on the wing Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry. But these are flowers that fly and all but sing; They lie closed over in the wind and cling BIRCHES When I see birches bend to left and right I like to think some boy's been swinging them. After a rain. They click upon themselves Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And not one but hung limp, not one was left To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches; Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs And half grant what I wish and snatch me away And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk That would be good both going and coming back. THE ONSET Always the same when on a fated night Gives up his errand and lets death descend More than if life had never been begun. Yet all the precedent is on my side: I know that winter-death has never tried That flashes tail through last year's withered brake Carl Sandburg Carl (August) Sandburg was born of Swedish stock at Galesburg, Illinois, January 6, 1878. His schooling was 'haphazard; at thirteen he went to work on a milk wagon. During the next six years he was, in rapid succession, porter in a barber shop, scene-shifter in a cheap theatre, truck-handler in a brickyard, turner apprentice in a pottery, dish-washer in Denver and Omaha hotels, harvest hand in Kansas wheat fields. These tasks equipped him, as no amount of learning could have done, to be the laureate of industrial America. In 1904, Sandburg published the proverbial "slender sheaf"; a tiny pamphlet of twenty-two poems, uneven in quality but strangely like the work of the mature Sandburg in feeling. It was twelve years later before the poet became known to the public. The vigor which lay at the heart of American toil found its outlet at last. Chicago Poems (1916) is full of ferment; it seethes with a direct poetry surcharged with tremendous energy. Here is an almost animal exultation that is also an exaltation. Sandburg's speech is simple and powerful; he uses slang as freely (and beautifully) as his predecessors used the now archaic tongue of their times. (See Preface.) Immediately the cries of protest were heard: Sandburg was coarse and brutal; his work |