Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

18. Muckers

TWENTY men stand watching the muckers.

Stabbing the sides of the ditch

Where clay gleams yellow,

Driving the blades of their shovels

Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains

Wiping sweat off their faces

With red bandanas

The muckers work on .. pausing .. to pull

Their boots out of suckholes where they slosh.

Of the twenty looking on

Ten murmer, “O, its a hell of a job,”

Ten others, “Jesus, I wish I had the job.”