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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
KILLERS (1), by CARL SANDBURG Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I am singing to you Last Line: Sixteen million men. Subject(s): World War I; First World War | |||
I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs on the green grass; And a red juice soaks the dark soil. And the sixteen million are killing . . . and killing and killing. I never forget them day or night: They beat on my head for memory of them; They pound on my heart and I cry back to them, To their homes and women, dreams and games. I wake in the night and smell the trenches, And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines -- Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark: Some of them long sleepers for always, Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always, Fixed in the drag of the world's heartbreak, Eating and drinking, toiling . . . on a long job of killing. Sixteen million men. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES |
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