I Am The People The Mob
I AM the people — the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history.
The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.
I am the seed ground.
I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.
Terrible storms pass over me. I forget.
The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget.
Everything but death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.
And I forget.
Sometimes I grows, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.
Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.
The lyrical form of this poem is unrhyming.
Napoleons implies the great military leaders such as Napoleon (Bonaparte) I, emperor of the French(1769-1821)Lincolns implies the great political leaders such as Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th President of
United States.fleck means trace
Carl Sandburg
Other author posts
Murmurings In A Field Hospital
[They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs ]Come to me only with playthings now
The Year
I A storm of white petals, Buds throwing open baby fists Into hands of broad flowers II Red roses running upward, Clambering to the clutches of life Soaked in crimson
Hope Is A Tattered Flag
Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in The evening star inviolable over the coal mines, The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
Stars Songs Faces
Gather the stars if you wish it so Gather the songs and keep them Gather the faces of women Gather for keeping years and years
