Back Yard

 - Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
     to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
     cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
     white thoughts you rain down.

     Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

from: The Chicago Poems. Copyright 1916.

Follies

 
      - Carl Sandburg
 

Shaken, 
The blossoms of lilac, 
  And shattered, 
The atoms of purple. 
Green dip the leaves,       
  Darker the bark, 
Longer the shadows. 
  
Sheer lines of poplar 
Shimmer with masses of silver 
And down in a garden old with years        
And broken walls of ruin and story, 
Roses rise with red rain-memories. 
      May! 
  In the open world 
The sun comes and finds your face,        
  Remembering all.

Theme in Yellow

- Carl Sandburg    

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Window

      by Carl Sandburg

Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.

Back Yard

by Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer. 
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak, 
All silver under your rain to-night. 
 
An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion. 
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
     to-night they are throwing you kisses.
 
An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
     cherry tree in his back yard. 
 
The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
     white thoughts you rain down. 
 
     Shine on, O moon, 
Shake out more and more silver changes.