Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MURMURINGS IN A FIELD HOSPITAL by CARL SANDBURG

Poet Analysis

First Line: COME TO ME ONLY WITH PLAYTHINGS NOW
Last Line: AND THE WORLD WAS ALL PLAYTHINGS.
Subject(s): HOSPITALS; WORLD WAR I; FIRST WORLD WAR;

[@3They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel
in his lungs.@1]

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 . . .

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
Yellow of the new crock of butter
Stood against the red of new climbing roses . . .
And the world was all playthings.



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