by Whitman · Cluster: Identity · Free Verse · Eternal Return
Abstract
A stark free-verse confrontation with one’s own corrupted body and soul reflected in a mirror; the mirror motif, decay, mortality and self-examination.
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori Motifs: Mirror, Decay Themes & Concepts: Body, Self-Knowledge Forms & Genres: Free Verse
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: BY THE ROADSIDE
Hold it up sternly—see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)
Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,
Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex;
Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soon—and from such a beginning!