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The Has-Been

by Carl Sandburg, 1916

A stone face higher than six horses stood five thousand years gazing at the world seeming to clutch a secret.
 A boy passes and throws a niggerhead that chips off the end of the nose from the stone face; he lets fly a mud ball that spatters the right eye and cheek of the old looker-on.
 The boy laughs and goes whistling “ee-ee-ee ee-ee-ee.” The stone face stands silent, seeming to clutch a secret.

Published in Chicago Poems
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