You never come back.
I say good-by when I see you going in the doors,
The hopeless open doors that call and wait
And take you then for–how many cents a day?
How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers?

I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists,
In the dark, in the silence, day by day,
And all the blood of you drop by drop,
And you are old before you are young.
You never come back.

Carl Sandburg was one of America’s most beloved poets during the first half of the twentieth century and was also known as biographer of Abraham Lincoln, children’s author, folksinger, journalist, and editor. He was the author of over forty books and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. On the occasion of his death in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America.”