The Walt Whitman Archive
Published Works
Periodicals
About this Item
Title: The Final Lilt of Songs
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: April 16, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: per.00084
Source: New York Herald 16 April 1888: 4. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm copy of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, April Lambert, and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |  cropped image 1 |
THE FINAL LILT OF SONGS.1
[WRITTEN FOR THE HERALD.]
To get the final lilt of songs,
To penetrate the inmost lore of poets—to know
the mighty ones,
the mighty ones,
Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespeare,
Tennyson, Emerson;
Tennyson, Emerson;
To diagnose the shifting delicate tints of love
and pride and doubt—to truly understand,
and pride and doubt—to truly understand,
To encompass these, the last keen faculty and
entrance price,
entrance price,
Old age, and what it brings from all its past ex-
periences.
periences.
WALT WHITMAN.
Notes:
1. Reprinted as "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs" in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). [back]