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

45. Style

STYLE—go ahead talking about style.

You can tell where a man gets his style just as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs or Ty Cobb his batting eye.

Go on talking.

Only don’t take my style away.

It’s my face.

Maybe no good

but anyway, my face.

I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it, I know why I want to keep it.

Kill my style

and you break Pavlowa’s legs,

and you blind Ty Cobb’s batting eye.