Cornhuskers Quotes

“The past is a bucket of ashes”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“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, 5
And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won’t come.”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“I speak of new cities and new people
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of tomorrows.
a sky of tomorrows.
I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
Tomorrow is a day.”

- Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“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 off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won’t come.”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers

“Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.”
― Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers