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

Index of First Lines

A forefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky

A goldwing moth is between the scissors and the ink bottle

A million young workmen straight and strong lay stiff

Among the bumble-bees in red-top hay

A storm of white petals

Baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, The

Band concert public square Nebraska city

Bees and a honeycomb in the dried head of a horse

Bilbea, I was in Babylon on Saturday night

Blossoms of babies

Body of Jesus taken down from the cross

Boy heart of Johnny Jones—aching to-day?

Brass medallion profile of your face I keep always, The

Bury this old Illinois farmer with respect

Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song

Chick in the egg picks at the shell, The

Child Margaret begins to write numbers, The

Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car

Cover me over

Days of the dead men, Danny

Empty battlefields keep their phantoms

Five circus clowns dying this year

Flanders, the name of a place, a country of people

Flat lands on the end of town where real estate men

For a woman’s face remembered as a spot of quick light

Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon

Have I told any man to be a liar for my sake?

Have me in the blue and the sun

He lived on the wings of storm

Here in a cage the dollars come down

Here is a face that says half-past seven

How many feet ran with sunlight, water, and air?

Huntington sleeps in a house six feet long

I am an ancient reluctant conscript

I am making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts

I don’t blame the kettle drums—they are hungry

If I had a million lives to live

I give the undertakers permission to haul my body

I have kept all, not one is thrown away

In Abraham Lincoln’s city

In the cool of the night time

In the loam we sleep

In the newspaper office—who are the spooks?

In the Shenandoah Valley, one rider gray and one rider blue

Into the blue river hills

Into the gulf and the pit of the dark night

I remember here by the fire

I remember the Chillicothe ball players

I rise out of my depths with my language

I saluted a nobody

I saw a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it

I sit in a chair and read the newspapers

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer

I too have a garret of old playthings

It’s a lean car … a long-legged dog of a car

It’s going to come out all right—do you know?

I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat

Jabowsky’s place is on a side street

Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs

Jimmy Wimbleton listened a first week in June

John Brown’s body under the morning stars

Last night a January wind was ripping at the shingles

Lay me on an anvil, O God

Leaves of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west

Let me be monosyllabic to-day, O Lord

Let the crows go by hawking their caw and caw

Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day

Lips half-willing in a doorway

Make war songs out of these

Mare Alix breaks the world’s trotting record one day, The

Mouth of this man is a gaunt strong mouth, The

Nancy Hanks dreams by the fire

Now that a crimson rambler

On the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams

On the one hand the steel works

Out of white lips a question: Shall seven million dead ask

Papa Joffre, the shoulders of him wide as the land of France

Pawn-shop man knows hunger, The

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo

Policeman buys shoes slow and careful, The

Rum tiddy um

Sea is large, The

Sell me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood

Smoke of autumn is on it all

Summer shirt sale of a downtown haberdasher is glorified, The

There are places I go when I am strong

There is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes

There was a high majestic fooling

They are crying salt tears

They have taken the ball of earth

Thin sheets of blue smoke among white slabs

Thirty-two Greeks are dipping their feet in a creek

This is the song I rested with

Three walls around the town of Tela when I came

Two Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs

Wagon Wheel Gap is a place I never saw

Washerwoman is a member of the Salvation Army, The

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs

When the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks

White Moon comes in on a baby face

Your bony head, Jazbo, O dock walloper

Your eyes and the valley are memories

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