by Whitman · Cluster: Self-Knowledge · Immortality · Self-Reliance
Abstract
The undiscouraged struggling soul of man as an endless march, with an appended elegiac affirmation that all are ‘going somewhere’.
Connections
Topoi: Quest Motifs: Journey, Road Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Doubt, Immortality, Friendship Forms & Genres: Free Verse
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;
(Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;)
Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;
Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud
applause;
Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;
Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.
“Going Somewhere”
My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,
(Now buried in an English grave—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)
Ended our talk—“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern
learning, intuitions deep,
“Of all Geologies—Histories—of all Astronomy—of Evolution,
Metaphysics all,
“Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,
“Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is
duly over,)
“The world, the race, the soul—in space and time the universes,
“All bound as is befitting each—all surely going somewhere.”