Mill-doors
Mill-doors - fact Summary
Notable Publication Detail
This short poem presents the bleak fate of industrial workers whose lives are consumed by mill labor. The speaker bids farewell to someone entering the mill doors, imagining the slow loss of vitality—tapped wrists, draining blood, aging before youth—suggesting work paid in paltry cents. The poem reflects Carl Sandburg’s longstanding empathy for the working class, shaped by his own early manual labor experiences.
Read Complete AnalysesYou never come back. I say good-by when I see you going in the doors, The hopeless open doors that call and wait And take you then for--how many cents a day? How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers? I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists, In the dark, in the silence, day by day, And all the blood of you drop by drop, And you are old before you are young. You never come back.
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