| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 70. 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.] |
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| 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… | 5 |
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| 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 | 10 |
| Yellow of the new crock of butter | |
| Stood against the red of new climbing roses… | |
| And the world was all playthings. | |
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