Threes

I was a boy when I heard three red words
 a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets
 for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked
 why men die for words.

 I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
 lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
 Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with
 face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
 —they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.

 Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
 of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
 their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
 dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
 for: Bread, Peace, Land.

 And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by—gimme a plate of ham and eggs—how much?—and—do you love me, kid?
Threes

by Carl Sandburg, 1920
