Share:
  Guess poet | Poets | Poets timeline | Isles | Contacts

Carl Sandburg - Fellow CitizensCarl Sandburg - Fellow Citizens
Work rating: Medium


I drank musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with     the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter     one night And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,     he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had     a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere. Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising     Association on the trade resources of South America. And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and     cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of     our best people, I knew he had a clutch on a real happiness even though     some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is     the living double of Jack London`s Sea Wolf. In the mayor`s office the mayor himself told me he was     happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-     seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat. Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with     his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache, And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch     and the mayor when it came to happiness. He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only     makes them from start to finish, but plays them     after he makes them. And he had a guitar of mahogany with a walnut bottom     he offered for seven dollars and a half if I wanted it, And another just like it, only smaller, for six dollars,     though he never mentioned the price till I asked him, And he stated the price in a sorry way, as though the     music and the make of an instrument count for a     million times more than the price in money. I thought he had a real soul and knew a lot about God. There was light in his eyes of one who has conquered     sorrow in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth     conquering. Anyway he is the only Chicago citizen I was jealous of     that day. He played a dance they play in some parts of Italy     when the harvest of grapes is over and the wine     presses are ready for work.
Source

The script ran 0.001 seconds.