Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.

83. Drumnotes

DAYS of the dead men, Danny.

Drum for the dead, drum on your

remembering heart.

Jaurès, a great love-heart of France,

a slug of lead in the red valves.

Kitchener of Khartoum, tall, cold, proud,

a shark’s mouthful.

Franz Josef, the old man of forty haunted

kingdoms, in a tomb with the Hapsburg

fathers, moths eating a green uniform

to tatters, worms taking all and leaving

only bones and gold buttons, bones and

iron crosses.

Jack London, Jim Riley, Verhaeren, riders to the republic of dreams.

Days of the dead, Danny.

Drum on your remembering heart.