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Murmurings in a Field Hospital

by Carl Sandburg, 1916

Come to me only with playthings now...
 A picture of a singing woman with blue eyes
 Standing at a fence of hollyhocks, poppies and sunflowers...
 Or an old man I remember sitting with children telling stories
 Of days that never happened anywhere in the world...

 No more iron cold and real to handle,
 Shaped for a drive straight ahead.
 Bring me only beautiful useless things.
 Only old home things touched at sunset in the quiet...
 And at the window one day in summer
 Yellow of the new crock of butter
 Stood against the red of new climbing roses...
 And the world was all playthings.

Published in Chicago Poems
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