Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.

VII. Passports

2. Tangibles

I HAVE seen this city in the day and the sun.

I have seen this city in the night and the moon.

And in the night and the moon I have seen a thing this city gave me nothing of in the day and the sun.

The float of the dome in the day and the sun is one thing.

The float of the dome in the night and the moon is another thing.

In the night and the moon the float of the dome is a dream-whisper, a croon of a hope: “Not today, child, not today, lover; maybe tomorrow, child, maybe tomorrow, lover.”

Can a dome of iron dream deeper than living men?

Can the float of a shape hovering among tree-tops—can this speak an oratory sad, singing and red beyond the speech of the living men?

A mother of men, a sister, a lover, a woman past the dreams of the living—

Does she go sad, singing and red out of the float of this dome?

There is … something … here … men die for.