by Whitman · Cluster: Identity · Free Verse · Eternal Return
Abstract
Declares his theme: the single self and the en-masse, the whole human form, sung for the New World, reaching out to the reader.
Connections
Topoi: Open Road Homecoming Motifs: Comradeship (2), Leaves Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Identity, Democracy, War and its Cost Forms & Genres: Free Verse
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: SANDS AT SEVENTY
Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest—namely, One’s-Self—
a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.
Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone,
nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;—I say the Form complete
is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.
Nor cease at the theme of One’s-Self. I speak the word of the
modern, the word En-Masse.
My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew of hapless War.
(O friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I
feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.
And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and
link’d together let us go.)