Prayers of Steel

by Carl Sandburg

Prayers of Steel is featured in Sandburg's Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Cornhuskers, published in 1918.

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.

You may also enjoy Woody Guthrie's folk song, Hard Traveling.

Add Prayers of Steel to your library.

Return to the Carl Sandburg library , or . . . Read the next poem; River Roads