And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this
my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to
be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Chicago (l. 10-12). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.)

tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more
than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Cool Tombs (l. 4). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.)

Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in
November

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Cool Tombs (l. 3). . . Oxford Book of Short Poems, The. P. J. Kavanagh and James Michie, eds. Oxford University Press.)

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work?
I am the grass; I cover all.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Grass (l. 1-3). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.)

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Prayers of Steel (l. 5-6). . . Modern American Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (8th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company.)

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Quoted in The Reader's Digest (Pleasantville, New York, February, 1978).)

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. Remembrance Rock, ch. 2 (1948).)

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. The People, Yes (1936).)

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. New York Post (Sept. 9, 1960).)

The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.

(Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), U.S. poet. The People, Yes (l. 1-2). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.)