Grass
Grass - context Summary
Published During World War I
Published in 1916 in Chicago Poems, Sandburg's "Grass" names battlefields from Austerlitz and Waterloo to Gettysburg, Ypres and Verdun and speaks in the grass that covers the dead. The poem frames collective forgetting and the passage of time—travelers later fail to recognize sites of carnage—while reflecting Sandburg's journalistic interest in history, ordinary life, and the human cost of war. It is spare free verse with a public, civic address.
Read Complete AnalysesPILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.
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