Sandburg, Carl. "Last Answers".

Summary and Analysis

A clever, slightly ironical, yet tender poem. It seems to refer to Sandburg's poem "Fog". The speaker seems very much to be identified with Sandburg. The speaker develops thoughts on the poem on mist which he wrote and tries to answer a woman's question what he meant by it.

Originally he thought only of the beauty of the mist which veils the lamps on the streets on the quivering points of mystery. His answer to the woman is that the mist was at the very beginning and will be the very end of this world. With slight self-irony and self-deprecation he announces that "all poets love dust and mist / because all the last answers go running back to dust and mist."