I DREAMED one man stood against a thousand,
One man damned as a wrongheaded fool.
One year and another he walked the streets,
And a thousand shrugs and hoots
Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed.
He died alone.
And only the undertaker came to his funeral.
Flowers grow over his grave anod in the wind,
And over the graves of the thousand, too,
The flowers grow anod in the wind.
Flowers and the wind,
Flowers anod over the graves of the dead,
Petals of red, leaves of yellow, streaks of white,
Masses of purple sagging. . .
I love you and your great way of forgetting.
This town was holding
whatever mistakes this
man had made against
him. Cruelty and coldness
was all he knew in the
face of others.
Death was not hypocritical; it
didn’t care what he had done
wrong. The flowers growing over
his and everyone else’s grave
proved that the petty cruelty
everyone showed towards him
wasn’t even worth it.
Theme: Cruelty is worthless
Carl Sandburg was more of a down to earth poet. He tried to write poetry that people would actually
understand and relate to. I believe he achieved this goal, especially with this poem. Everyone is human
and makes mistakes, but it’s not right for us to hold them against each other. I think this is a great poem
for high school students to read because of how mean we can all be to each other. The lines “Flowers
grow over his grave anod in the wind, and over the graves of the thousand, too, The flowers grow anod
in the wind.” proves that once you’re dead you’re not judged like you were in life. Flowers grew on the
graves of everyone that had been cruel to him as well as his grave, which I think should open our eyes to
the fact that our words and actions have more consequences than we realize.