Grass*

Author: Carl Sandburg
Written: 1918
Introduction:
This poem shows one view of many on war. Coincidentally, it was written shortly after World War I ended.

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.

*The proper names in this poem are all famous battlefields in, respectively, the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, and World War I.