It’s going to come out all right-do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass-they know.
They get along-and we’ll get along.
Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting
And the letter you wait for won’t come,
And I will sit watching the sky tear of grey and grey
And the letter I wait for won’t come.
There will be ac-ci-dents.
I know ac-ci-dents are coming.
Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,
Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.
But somehow and somewhere the end of the run
The train gets put together again
And the caboose and the green tail lights
Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.
I never heard a mocking-bird in Kentucky
Spilling its heart in the morning.
I never saw the snow on Chimborazo.
It’s a high white Mexican hat, I hear.
I never had supper with Abe Lincoln.
Nor a dish of soup with Jim Hill.
But I’ve been around.
I know some of the boys who can go a little.
I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.
I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.
I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had million dollars.
I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance.
She had eyes; she was safe as the bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington,
I married her.
Last summer we took the cushions going west.
Pike’s Peak is a big old stone, believe me.
It’s fastened down; something you can count on.
It’s going to come out all right-do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass-they know.
They get along-and we’ll get along.
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Carl August Sandburg (1878 – 1967)