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by Carl Sandburg (1918)


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.

2007-07-28 17:35:39 · 4 answers · asked by kim 2 in Arts & Humanities Poetry

4 answers

All places of battles and death.
Time passes - people forget (and keep making the same mistakes over and over).

2007-07-29 13:59:37 · answer #1 · answered by bermbits 5 · 0 0

Austerlitz And Waterloo

2016-10-16 11:29:13 · answer #2 · answered by northcott 4 · 0 0

I'm not sure what the question is...but if you're looking for a "meaning" to the poem, it is that regardless of how bloody the battle, how many died, or who won, it all passes in time under the grass, until it's nothing more than a memory in green. Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres and Verdun were all famous for the number of dead on their fields. It also shows that it doesn't take generations...only 2 years, maybe 10 at most, and it all passes away under the grass that grows. It also makes a parallel to the official graveyards where grass is used to cover the graves...so it implies that grass is the great concealer of death, on the field and in the cemetery...it's all the same to the grass that grows.

2007-07-31 20:18:47 · answer #3 · answered by Kevin S 7 · 1 0

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.?
by Carl Sandburg (1918)


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...

2015-08-06 16:16:44 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

pile bodies high austerlitz waterloo

2016-01-31 08:01:27 · answer #5 · answered by Carolynn 4 · 0 0

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