Joy (Sandburg)

Joy always,
Joy everywhere—
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.

Carl Sandburg, from "Joy"

Of wet and wildness (Hopkins)

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, from "Inversnaid"

Breaking loose (Sandburg)

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
   "I earn my living.
   I make enough to get by
   and it takes all my time.
   If I had more time
   I could do more for myself
   and maybe for others.
   I could read and study
   and talk things over
   and find out about things.
   It takes time.
   I wish I had the time."
   The people is a tragic and comic two-face:
   hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla twist-
   ing to moan with a gargoyle mouth: "They
   buy me and sell me...it's a game...
   sometime I'll break loose..."

Carl Sandburg, from "The People, Yes"