Death Snips Proud Men
Death Snips Proud Men
Original Text
Carl Sandburg, Smoke and Steel (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), p. 60. PS 3537 A61856 1920 Robarts Library.
2 the governments are men and men die and then
3 death laughs: Now you see 'em, now you don't.
4Death is stronger than all proud men and so death
5 snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of
6 dice and says: Read 'em and weep.
8 you I'll drop in--and then one day he comes with a
9 master-key and lets himself in and says: We'll
10 go now.
11Death is a nurse mother with big arms: 'Twon't hurt
12 you at all; it's your time now; just need a
13 long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow
14 better than sleep?
Notes
1] snips: cuts down with scissors (cf. Atropos, the fate who cut the thread of men's life). Back to Line
7] radiogram: wireless message. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1920
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme