Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.

65. Films

I HAVE kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a corner with a “P-f-f.”

The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones.

Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again.

They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October,

Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow.

Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes,

O there shall be no ragman have these yet a year, yet ten years.