Carl Sandburg

IGNORANCE came in stones of gold;

The ignorant slept while the hangmen

Hanged the keepers of the lights

Of sweet stars: such were the apothegms,

Offhand offerings of mule-drivers

Eating sandwiches of rye bread,

Salami and onions.

“Too Many Books,” we always called him;

A landscape of masterpieces and old favorites

Fished with their titles for his eyes

In the upstairs and downstairs rooms

Of his house. Whenever he passed

The old-time bar-room where Pete Morehouse

Shot the chief of police, where

The sponge squads shot two bootleggers,

He always remembered the verse story,

The Face on the Bar-room Floor—

The tramp on a winter night,

Saddened and warmed with whiskey,

Telling of a woman he wanted

And a woman who wanted him,

How whiskey wrecked it all;

Taking a piece of chalk,

Picturing her face on the bar-room floor,

Fixing the lines of her face

While he told the story,

Then gasping and falling with finished heartbeats,

Dead.

And whenever he passed over the bridge at night

And took the look up the river to smaller bridges,

Barge lights, and looming shores,

He always thought of Edgar Allan Poe,

With a load of hootch in him,

Going to a party of respectable people

Who called for a speech,

Who listened to Poe recite the Lord’s Prayer,

Correctly, word for word, yet with lush, unmistakable

Intonations, so haunting the dinner-party people

All excused themselves to each other.

Whenever Too Many Books

Passed over the town bridge in the gloaming,

He thought of Poe breaking up that party

Of respectable people. Such was Too Many Books—

We called him that.