Sandburg was the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes. In 1919 and 1951 he won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry: in 1940 he won the Pulitzer Prize in History for "Abraham Lincoln;The War Years." This was the second volume of his biography of our 16th president.
It's going to be all right----do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass----they know.
They get along----and we'll get along.
Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting
And the letter you wait for won't come,
And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won't come.
There will be ac-ci-dents.
I know ac-ci-dents are coming.
Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,
Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.
But somehow and somewhere the end of the run
The train gets put together again
And the caboose and the green tail lights
Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.
I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky
Spilling its heart in the morning.
I never saw the snow in Chimborazo.
It's a high white Mexican hat, I hear.
But I've been around.
I know some of the boys here who can go a little.
I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.
I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.
I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barbershop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had a million dollars.
I knew a hotel girl in DesMoines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for a prize waltz at a
Brotherhood dance.
She had eyes; she was safe at the bridge over the
Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.
Last summer we took the cushions going west.
Pike's Peak is a big old stone, believe me.
It's fastened down, something you can count on.
It's going to come out all right----do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass----they know.
They get along----and we'll get along.
Caboose Thoughts
1918
1918
The sun, the birds, the grass----they know.
They get along----and we'll get along.
Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting
And the letter you wait for won't come,
And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won't come.
There will be ac-ci-dents.
I know ac-ci-dents are coming.
Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,
Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.
But somehow and somewhere the end of the run
The train gets put together again
And the caboose and the green tail lights
Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.
I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky
Spilling its heart in the morning.
I never saw the snow in Chimborazo.
It's a high white Mexican hat, I hear.
But I've been around.
I know some of the boys here who can go a little.
I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.
I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.
I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barbershop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had a million dollars.
I knew a hotel girl in DesMoines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for a prize waltz at a
Brotherhood dance.
She had eyes; she was safe at the bridge over the
Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.
Last summer we took the cushions going west.
Pike's Peak is a big old stone, believe me.
It's fastened down, something you can count on.
It's going to come out all right----do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass----they know.
They get along----and we'll get along.
Carl Sandburg 1878 - 1967
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