Winter Poem

Cool Tombs
               by Carl Sandburg

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot
    the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the cool
   tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street,
    cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the cool
   tombs.

Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in
Novem-
   ber or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? Does she
remember?
   . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?

Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries,
cheering
   a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns . . . tell me
   if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more than the
   lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.