Jack
Jack
Original Text
Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916), p. 46. PS 3537 A618C5 1916 Robarts Library.
1JACK was a swarthy, swaggering son-of-a-gun.
2He worked thirty years on the railroad, ten hours a day,
3 and his hands were tougher than sole leather.
4He married a tough woman and they had eight children
5 and the woman died and the children grew up and
6 went away and wrote the old man every two years.
7He died in the poorhouse sitting on a bench in the sun
8 telling reminiscences to other old men whose women
9 were dead and children scattered.
10There was joy on his face when he died as there was joy
11 on his face when he lived--he was a swarthy, swag-
12 gering son-of-a-gun.
Publication Start Year
1916
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme