Carl Sandburg offers a quiet portrait of working people who begin their jobs while the city still sleeps. A policeman and a teamster buy shoes and gloves with deliberate care because their livelihoods depend on their feet and hands. A milkman works in solitude, climbing endless stairways with only his horses for company and never arguing. Rolling-mill and sheet-steel men go home covered in cinders, burning holes in their trousers and scrubbing smut from their necks and ears. The speaker feels a plain, respectful tenderness toward these workers—no hero worship, just attention to their routines and small rituals. The mood is hushed, somber, and almost prayerful, as if these unnoticed labors deserve a psalm of their own.
Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight — Summary
The policeman buys shoes slow and careful ; the teamster buys gloves slow and careful; they take care of their feet and hands; they live on their feet and hands.
The milkman never argues; he works alone and no one speaks to him; the city is asleep when he is on the job; he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day's work; he climbs two hundred wooden stairways ; two horses are company for him ; he never argues.
The rolling-mill men and the sheet-steel men are brothers of cinders; they empty cinders out of their shoes after the day's work; they ask their wives to fix burnt holes in the knees of their trousers; their necks and ears are covered with a smut; they scour their necks and ears ; they are brothers of cinders.