Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburgwas an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems, Cornhuskers, and Smoke and Steel. He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life",...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth6 January 1878
CountryUnited States of America
Lips half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers.
The drum in a dream pounds loud to the dreamer.
And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is romance and big things and real dreams that never go smash.
Poetry is any page from a sketchbook of outlines of a doorknob with thumb-prints of dust, blood, dreams.
And those who say, "I'll try anything once," often try nothing twice, three times, arriving late at the gate of dreams worth dying for.
Nothing happens... but first a dream.
All we need to begin with is a # dream that we can do better than before. All we need to have is faith, and that dream will come true. All we need to do is act, and the time for action is now.
There are dreams stronger than death. Men and women die holding these dreams.
Nothing happens unless first we dream.
The republic is a dream, Nothing happens unless first a dream
Sandburg's retelling of Lincoln's attendance at an evangelist rally led by Peter Cartwright in 1846, in response to accusations by Cartwright's followers that he was an "infidel" - Cartwright was his opponent in his race for Congress:
I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar
If America forgets where she came from, if the people lose sight of what brought them along, if she listens to the deniers and mockers, then will begin the rot and dissolution.
I am the people - the mob - the crowd - the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?