Carl Sandburg’s speaker asks to be thrown into the ocean and packed down in the wet salt. He doesn’t want his bones left on land, where a farmer’s plow might disturb them or a future Hamlet might hold his skull and make speeches about vanished jokes and an empty mouth. Instead, he imagines green-eyed scavengers picking at his eyes and purple fish playing hide-and-seek around him. The mood is not mournful; it feels wild, elemental, and strangely free. There is no fear of being eaten or scattered. Dying into the sea becomes less like loss and more like joining something older and louder. The speaker wants to dissolve out of human ceremony and become part of the ocean’s endless noise—thunder and crashing water. The repeated line “Sling me . . . under the sea” sounds like a calm, insistent wish for that restless, salt-filled resting place.
Bones — Summary
Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer's plow shall touch my bones. No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak How jokes are gone and empty is my mouth. Long, green-eyed scavengers shall pick my eyes, Purple fish play hide-and-seek, And I shall be song of thunder, crash of sea, Down on the floors of salt and wet. Sling me . . . under the sea.