Grass By: Carl Sandburg

1
Grass By Carl Sandburg

• PILE 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 passengers ask the
  conductor
• What place is this?
• Where are we now?
•  
• I am the grass.
• Let me work.

2

• Austerlitz Major battle of the Napoleonic wars,
  fought on December 2, 1805. Nearly 25,000 men
  died. Napoleon Bonaparte and his army of nearly
  70,000 soldiers defeated a force of Russians and
  Austrians numbering about 90,000. Austerlitz is
  in the present-day Czech Republic. 
• Waterloo The final battle of the Napoleonic
  wars, fought near Waterloo, Belgium, on June 18,
  1815, and resulting in more than 60,000
  casualties. British forces under the Duke of
  Wellington, General Arthur Wellesley, and
  Prussian forces under Field Marshal Gebhard
  Leberecht von Blücher combined to defeat
  Napoleon. 

3

• Gettysburg Major battle of the U.S. Civil War in
  which Union forces of General George G. Meade
  defeated Confederate forces under General Robert
  E. Lee near the small town of Gettysburg,
  Pennsylvania, on July 1-3, 1863, resulting in
  45,000 to 50,000 casualties. The battle turned
  the tide of the war in favor of the Union. 
• Ypres (pronounced E pruh) Town in Belgium that
  was the site of three major World War I battles
  (October-November 1914, April-May 1915, and
  July-November 1917) that resulted in more than
  850,000 German and allied casualties. 
• Verdun Indecisive World War I battle between the
  French and the Germans fought at Verdun, France,
  from February to December, 1916. Total casualties
  numbered more than 700,000.

4
Questions

1. What key words or phrases are repeated? What
   effect does this have?
2. The dominant rhetorical strategy is
   personification. What is personified? How does
   this help produce the tone of the poem?
3. What is/are the tone(s) of the poem? Is it
   legitimate to see two diametrically opposing
   tones here? If so what would they be?
4. Allusions also play a major role. Identify the
   allusions and discuss why these particular ones
   are used.
5. What is the point of view? What does this
   contribute to the poem?
6. If one of Sandburgs contentions is that people
   forget about war and fallen heroes, does the fact
   that many war memorials and statues, cannons, and
   plaques dot the landscape at the site of the
   Battle of Gettysburg contradict this?

5

• 7. The poem is written in free verse. Free
  verse ignores standard rules of meter in favor of
  the rhythms of ordinary conversation. In effect,
  free verse liberates poetry from conformity to
  rigid metrical rules that dictate stress patterns
  and the number of syllables per line. French
  poets originated free verse (or vers libre) in
  the 1880s, although earlier poems of Walt Whitman
  (1819-1892) and other writers exhibited
  characteristics of free verse. Does the absence
  of end rhyme strengthen or weaken the poem?
• 8. Which of the following BEST expresses the
  theme of the poem? Why?
• Theme 1  After humans kill one another in
  recurring wars, they let nature cover up their
  dirty work. Theme 2  People forget the lessons
  of history. Consequently, they repeat the
  mistakes that caused the wars of the past. Theme
  3  People forget the fallen heroes of war after
  several years pass and grass repairs battlefield
  scars. Theme 4  Nature goes about its business
  dispassionately and ineluctably even in wartime.