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Carl Sandburg - LanguagesCarl Sandburg - Languages
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THERE are no handles upon a language   Whereby men take hold of it   And mark it with signs for its remembrance.   It is a river, this language,   Once in a thousand years   Breaking a new course   Changing its way to the ocean.   It is mountain effluvia   Moving to valleys  And from nation to nation  Crossing borders and mixing.  Languages die like rivers.  Words wrapped round your tongue today  And broken to shape of thought  Between your teeth and lips speaking  Now and today  Shall be faded hieroglyphics  Ten thousand years from now.  Sing—and singing—remember  Your song dies and changes  And is not here to-morrow  Any more than the wind  Blowing ten thousand years ago.
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