Carl Sandburg’s “Threes” follows a speaker looking back at the three-word slogans people have lived and died by. As a boy he hears “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and wonders why men die for words. Later come softer triads like “Mother, Home, and Heaven” and weightier ones like “God, Duty, Immortality,” then the Russian workers’ cry for “Bread, Peace, Land.” Each set of words promises something worth fighting for, yet the speaker’s tone grows wry and tired as the years pass. The closing scene lands on a marine who wants only “a plate of ham and eggs,” the price, and an answer to “do you love me, kid?” The poem contrasts grand abstractions with plain hunger, cost, and affection, ending with an earthy, knowing smile about what most people really need.
Threes — Summary
I WAS a boy when I heard three red words a thousand Frenchmen died in the streets for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — I asked why men die for words. I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns, lilacs, told me the high golden words are : Mother, Home, and Heaven — other older men with face decorations said : God, Duty, Immortality — they sang these threes slow from deep lungs. Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks of doom and damnation, soup and nuts : meteors flashed their say-so: and out of great Russia came three dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die for: Bread, Peace, Land. And I met a marine of the U. S. A., a leatherneck with a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things and I always get by — gimme a plate of ham and eggs — how much? — and — do you love me, kid?