Carl Sandburg — Threes

I was a boy when I heaid three red words

a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets

for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity-I asked

why men die Jor woкds.

I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns

lilacs, told me the high golden words are:

Mother, Home and Heaven-other older men with

face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality

-they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.

Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks

of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed

their say-so: and out of great Russia came three

dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die

for: Bread, Peace, Land.

And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with

a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the

earth and he said: tell me how to say three things

and I always get by-gimme a plate of ham and eggs-

how much?-and-do you love me, kid?