AMERICA

Carl Sandburg

“And so the pavilion of the four winds

Came the little one they called America,

One that suckled, struggled, toiled, laughed, grew.

America began young the same as a baby.

The little new republic had its swaddling cloths,

Its child shirt, its tussle to knit long bone joints,

And who can read the circle of its moon now?

And who shall tell beforehand the secrets of its salts and blood?”