Bath
by Carl Sandburg
A man saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones . The rose flesh of life shriveled from all faces . Nothing counts . Everything is a fake . Dust to dust and ashes to ashes and then an old darkness and a useless silence. So he saw it all . Then he went to a Mischa Elman concert . Two hours waves of sound beat on his eardrums . Music washed something or other inside him . Music broke down and rebuilt something or other in his head and heart . He joined in five encores for the young Russian Jew the fiddle . When he got outside his heels hit the sidewalk in a new way . He was the same man in the same world as before . Only there was a singing fire and a climb of roses everlastingly over the world he looked on .
Chicago Poems
1916