Comment 1 of 2, added on December 5th, 2004 at 10:27 PM.

"Sandhill People"-

*- The "Sandhill people" Sandburg is making reference to are birds, more specifcally seagulls. He uses the phrase "a thing my people call _______" as a way to futher establish the idea that the Sandhill people are a small society in themselves and that the gulls have words for the emotions he is describing.


*- The narrator's point (3): A.) picture,
B.) location,
C.) thought
*-There is a clear cut example of parallelism when comparing the gramatical stucture 1st and 2nd stanza, but there is also a relationship between the ideas within these stanzas.


I- A.) Flying Seagull over Pine-trees
B.) Waukegan, IL-
C.) Love- Compared to a flowing river that tumbles over terrain

The scene of a gull flying presumably in the daylight brings about the idea of love and excileration. (River thing)


II- A.) A bird's cry signaling the begining of night
B.) Sandhills
C.) Silence- compared to wind running over terrain, never to be heard again

The scene of a single bird's cry brings about the idea of silence (A single sound makes silence more noticable,) and the begining of darkness/death.

III- A.) 3 waterbirds on the shoreline creating markings in the sand (Bird Sanscrit) The words themselve "zig-zag" like the birds in the stanza because of the use of double gerund phrases.
B.) Beach/Shoreline
C.) Death- described as a "coat all the stars and seas have worn" and "A face the beach wears between sunset and dusk"

The scene of 3 birds scuttling around in the shore brings about the idea death or the end of a day.
*-(CONFUSING- WHAT DOES THE PHRASE "neither a whistle...." ADD TO THE POEM.??)
*-Death- invetiable, old, natural, cyclic, etc....
*-(Maybe change from light to dark, or Day to night, paralleism?)


Robert Plasschaert from United States