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Broken Tabernacles

by Carl Sandburg, 1920

Have I broken the smaller tabernacles, O Lord?
 And in the destruction of these set up the greater and massive, the everlasting tabernacles?
 I know nothing today, what I have done and why, O Lord, only I have broken and broken tabernacles.
 They were beautiful in a way, these tabernacles torn down by strong hands swearing—
 They were beautiful—why did the hypocrites carve their own names on the corner-stones? why did the hypocrites keep on singing their own names in their long noses every Sunday in these tabernacles?
 Who lays any blame here among the split cornerstones?

Published in Smoke and Steel
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