| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 21. Child of the Romans |
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| THE DAGO shovelman sits by the railroad track | |
| Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna. | |
| A train whirls by, and men and women at tables | |
| Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils, | |
| Eat steaks running with brown gravy, | 5 |
| Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee. | |
| The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna, | |
| Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy, | |
| And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day’s work | |
| Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils | 10 |
| Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases | |
| Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars. | |
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