Cool Tombs
Cool Tombs - context Summary
Published 1916 in Chicago
Published in Sandburg's 1916 collection Chicago Poems, "Cool Tombs" contrasts famous historical figures and ordinary people to insist on death's equalizing effect. The poem moves from Lincoln, Grant and Pocahontas to a streetful of shoppers and lovers, noting that reputation, wealth and status dissolve into "the dust, in the cool tombs." It presents mortality as a communal, democratic fate that renders human distinctions temporary.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs. And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs. Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs? Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns . . . tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.
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