The Walking Man of Rodin
The Walking Man of Rodin - meaning Summary
Celebrating Human Movement
Sandburg's poem praises the human body’s locomotive power, focusing on legs that lift torso and enable action. Addressing Rodin's walking figure, the speaker exults in practical strength—bones, cords, lungs, arms—valued for work and motion. The deliberate absence of the head shifts emphasis from intellect to embodied energy and pride in physical capability. The poem celebrates movement and the dignity of labor over abstract thought.
Read Complete AnalysesLegs hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us Proud of our legs, old man. And you left off the head here, The skull found always crumbling neighbor of the ankles.
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