Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RIGHT TO GRIEF, by CARL SANDBURG


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RIGHT TO GRIEF, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Take your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Last Line: With a broom.
Variant Title(s): The Right To Grief; To Certain Poets About To Die
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


Take your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to scratch off
And get cashed.
Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow of my own if I want to.
I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky.
His job is sweeping blood off the floor.
He gets a dollar seventy cents a day when he works
And it's many tubs of blood he shoves out with a broom day by day.
Now his three year old daughter
Is in a white coffin that cost him a week's wages.
Every Saturday night he will pay the undertaker fifty cents till the
debt is wiped out.
The hunky and his wife and the kids
Cry over the pinched face almost at peace in the white box.
They remember it was scrawny and ran up high doctor bills.
They are glad it is gone for the rest of the family now will have
more to eat and wear.
Yet before the majesty of Death they cry around the coffin
And wipe their eyes with red bandanas and sob when the priest
says, "God have mercy on us all."
I have a right to feel my throat choke about this.
You take your grief and I mine -- see?
To-morrow there is no funeral and the hunky goes back to his job
sweeping blood off the floor at a dollar seventy cents a day.
All he does all day long is keep on shoving hog blood ahead of him
with a broom.




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