Hog Butcher for the World, <br />Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, <br />Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; <br />Stormy, husky, brawling, <br />City of the Big Shoulders: <br /> <br />They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I <br />have seen your painted women under the gas lamps <br />luring the farm boys. <br />And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it <br />is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to <br />kill again. <br />And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the <br />faces of women and children I have seen the marks <br />of wanton hunger. <br />And having answered so I turn once more to those who <br />sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer <br />and say to them: <br />Come and show me another city with lifted head singing <br />so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. <br />Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on <br />job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the <br />little soft cities; <br /> <br />Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning <br />as a savage pitted against the wilderness, <br /> <br />Bareheaded, <br />Shoveling, <br />Wrecking, <br />Planning, <br />Building, breaking, rebuilding, <br /> <br />Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with <br />white teeth, <br />Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young <br />man laughs, <br />Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has <br />never lost a battle, <br />Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, <br />and under his ribs the heart of the people, <br /> <br />Laughing! <br /> <br />Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of <br />Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog <br />Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with <br />Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/chicago/
