Carl Sandburg
Selected Poems
Introduction
Hats
Skypieces
Haunts
from Prairie
Under the Harvest Moon
Under a Hat Rim
Prayers of Steel
Broken Face Gargoyles
Upstream
Pennsylvania
Aprons of Silence
Speed
The Junk Man
A Million Young Workmen, 1915
UPSTREAM
The strong men keep coming on.
They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken.
They live on fighting, singing,
lucky as plungers.
The strong men…they keep coming on.
They strong mothers pulling them
from a dark sea, a great prairie,
a long mountain.
Call hallelujah, call amen,
call deep thanks.
The strong men keep coming on.