Sandburg looks at Rodin’s famous headless statue of a walking man and finds himself stirred by what remains: the legs. For him those legs are not just stone; they are the force that lifts a human body out of the soft earth, out of ooze, and gives the eyes, ears, and arms a place to do their living. The poem feels like a thank-you to the figure—old man—for reminding us that our upright stance, our ability to move and work, is something to be proud of. Then comes a wry, somber turn: the head is missing, and the skull is just another crumbling bone near the ankles. The speaker seems to say that thought and identity decay, but the body’s power—especially in the legs—lasts in the sculpture and in the imagination. The mood is earthy admiration mixed with a gentle irony about the head’s absence.
The Walking Man of Rodin — Summary
Legs hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us Proud of our legs, old man. And you left off the head here, The skull found always crumbling neighbor of the ankles.