Summary Of Carl Sandburg's Poem 'Gettysburg, To Waterloo'

Prisoners of the past, doomed to repeat a mistake. Human nature tells us to rationalize or justify the means to which we procure the end result. For example, there are some lessons you learn. When being pulled over for speeding, the ticket reinforces the idea to pay mind to the speed limit. With the lesson in mind you will be less likely to repeat the same mistake in theory again after paying a fine. But how many still obey the speed limit despite some previously been caught and pay a fine? Human’s rationalization says that it won’t happen again. The same idea with a view to war, like other countless lessons, human nature fails to correct these mistakes from happening time and time again. This lesson transcends time, it is an established notion in every country and in every human, throughout the world. From Verdun, Gettysburg, to Waterloo, examples of how war can be in any century. The speaker in Carl Sandburg’s poem Grass uses

The speaker uses first person personal pronouns like I and me to show that the speaker has this authoritative tone, talking to humanity as if it were a child. However the use of them as a pronoun for humanity illustrates, a power exchange between humans and grass. Through this tone the Grass is very much instructing humanity what to do. All the while Grass holds an indifference to what humanity does. Grass has learned, humanity will continually make the same mistakes, no matter where they are, or what time it is in history. People are just giving Grass more work to do. In the final two lines of the poem “I am the grass. Let me work.” (Lines 10, 11) This annoyed tone comes from how humanity continuously asks questions even years later, or the ghosts of humanity does. Bothering the Grass so much that he just tells them that he is the grass, to let him do his job and to go back to whatever it was they were