Statistics
Statistics - context Summary
Published in 1920 Collection
Published in Sandburg’s 1920 collection Smoke and Steel, "Statistics" places the sleeping statue of Napoleon beside the impersonal tally of millions mobilized and the hum of aeroplanes. The poem contrasts a heroic, personal military legacy with modern massed, mechanized warfare. Its placement in 1920 situates it amid postwar reckonings and industrial-era anxieties about how war and technology have altered the scale and meaning of military glory.
Read Complete AnalysesNapoleon shifted, Restless in the old sarcophagus And murmured to a watchguard: "Who goes there?" "Twenty-one million men, Soldiers, armies, guns, Twenty-one million Afoot, horseback, In the air, Under the sea." And Napoleon turned to his sleep: "It is not my world answering; It is some dreamer who knows not The world I marched in From Calais to Moscow." And he slept on In the old sarcophagus While the aeroplanes Droned their motors Between Napoleon's mausoleum And the cool night stars.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.