CLEAN HANDS

Carl Sandburg

Solo 1: It is something to face the sun and know your are free.

To hold your head in the shafts or daylight

slanting the earth

And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood

runs clean:

All: It is something

To go one day of your life among all men with

clean hands,

Clean for the day book today and the record

of the after days,

Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last,

and ready,

So to have clean hands:

Solo 1: God, it is something, One day of life so

And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out

And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.

All: And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men,

proud of their hands—

Solo 1: Clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists

ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the

fight, the pay and the memories—

All: O the men proud of their hands.