Trinity Place
Trinity Place - meaning Summary
City Life Beside History
Sandburg contrasts the celebrated graves of Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton in Trinity Churchyard with the restless, ordinary life of New York City around them. The poem places historical greatness beside everyday concerns—stenographers, vendors, and passersby—highlighting continuity between past achievements and present hustle. The closing refrain, repeating that Hamilton and Fulton sleep easy
, suggests both the finality of fame and the indifferent, ongoing flow of urban life.
THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street. The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops. And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love. An iron picket fence ... and streaming thousands along Broadway sidewalks ... straw hats, faces, legs ... a singing, talking, hustling river ... down the great street that ends with a Sea. ... easy is the sleep of Alexander Hamilton. ... easy is the sleep of Robert Fulton. ... easy are the great governments and the great steamboats.
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