Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

134. The Noon Hour

SHE sits in the dust at the walls

And makes cigars,

Bending at the bench

With fingers wage-anxious,

Changing her sweat for the day’s pay.

Now the noon hour has come,

And she leans with her bare arms

On the window-sill over the river,

Leans and feels at her throat

Cool-moving things out of the free open ways:

At her throat and eyes and nostrils

The touch and the blowing cool

Of great free ways beyond the walls.