by Whitman · Cluster: Mortality · Grave · Memento Mori
Abstract
A free-verse lyric anticipating the poet’s death and the silencing of his song; themes of mortality, the book and the soul.
Connections
Motifs: Book Reading, Death Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Self-Knowledge Settings: America
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: SONGS OF PARTING
As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud, A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.
I shall go forth, I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long, Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this? Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us? —and yet it is enough, O soul; O soul, we have positively appear’d—that is enough.