6. They Will Say. Sandburg, Carl. 1916. Chicago Poems

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

6. They Will Say


OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this:
You took little children away from the sun and the dew,
And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,
And the reckless rain; you put them between walls
To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages,	5
To eat dust in their throats and die empty-hearted
For a little handful of pay on a few Saturday nights.