Child of the Romans

Carl Sandburg 1878 (Galesburg) – 1967 (Flat Rock)



The dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.
The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,
Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,
And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day’s work
Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils
Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases
Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
71

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCCBBBDECFG
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 568
Words 103
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor best known for poetry. more…

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