Chicago

by Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen
     your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have
     seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
     women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at
     this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud
     to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is
     a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage
     pitted against the wilderness,
     Bareheaded,
     Shoveling,
     Wrecking,
     Planning,
     Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white
     teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man
     laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a
     battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under
     his ribs the heart of the people,
               Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-
     naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker
     of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the
     Nation.