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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
POPULATION DRIFTS, by CARL SANDBURG Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: New-mown hay smell and wind of the plain made her
Last Line: Of life again with tough hands and passion.
First Line: New-mown hay smell and wind of the plain made her
Last Line: Of life again with tough hands and passion.
New-mown hay smell and wind of the plain made her a woman
whose ribs had the power of the hills in them and her hands
were tough for work and there was passion for life in her womb.
She and her man crossed the ocean and the years that marked their
faces saw them haggling with landlords and grocers while six
children played on the stones and prowled in the garbage cans.
One child coughed its lungs away, two more have adenoids, and
can neither talk nor run like their mother, one is in jail, two
have jobs in a box factory
And as they fold the pasteboard, they wonder what the wishing is
and the wistful glory in them that flutters faintly when the
glimmer of spring comes on the air or the green of summer
turns brown:
They do not know it is the new-mown hay smell calling and the
wind of the plain praying for them to come back and take hold
of life again with tough hands and passion.
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A MILLION YOUNG WORKMEN, 1915 by CARL SANDBURG
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ADELAIDE CRAPSEY by CARL SANDBURG