| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922. |
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| IV. Playthings of the Wind |
| 10. Threes |
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| I WAS a boy when I heard three red words | |
| a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets | |
| for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked | |
| why men die for words. | |
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| I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns, | 5 |
| lilacs, told me the high golden words are: | |
| Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with | |
| face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality | |
| —they sang these threes slow from deep lungs. | |
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| Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks | 10 |
| of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed | |
| their say-so: and out of great Russia came three | |
| dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die | |
| for: Bread, Peace, Land. | |
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| And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by—gimme a plate of ham and eggs—how much?—and—do you love me, kid? | 15 |
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