70. Murmurings in a Field Hospital. [They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs.]. Sandburg, Carl. 1916. Chicago Poems

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

70. Murmurings in a Field Hospital

[They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs.]


COME to me only with playthings now…
A picture of a singing woman with blue eyes
Standing at a fence of hollyhocks, poppies and sunflowers…
Or an old man I remember sitting with children telling stories
Of days that never happened anywhere in the world…	5

No more iron cold and real to handle,
Shaped for a drive straight ahead.
Bring me only beautiful useless things.
Only old home things touched at sunset in the quiet…
And at the window one day in summer	10
Yellow of the new crock of butter
Stood against the red of new climbing roses…
And the world was all playthings.