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Dooryard Bloom'd," as one of his supreme achievements in this mode.Late in life Whitman commented, "My
Similarly, "the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water" (section
beginning of the poem Whitman calls the sights and sounds around him "glories strung like beads on my
My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon, 1985. Coffman, Stanley K., Jr.
emerges from his "bower refresh'd with sleep" and urges, "Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my
body as I pass, / Be not afraid of my body."
A curious line in the middle of the poem—"The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body
Amativeness, and even Animality. . . . the espousing principle of those lines so gives breath of life to my
He examined his own experience in My Days and Dreams (1890).
included Two Rivulets, a collection of prose and poetry that Whitman hoped would "set the key-stone to my
The récherché or ethereal sense, as used in my book, arises probably from it, Calamus presenting the
attachment," concluding "I proceed for all who are or have been young men, / To tell the secret of my
The next poem, "Scented Herbage of My Breast," initially introduces an extraordinarily copious imagery
expose me more than all my other poems."
O pulse of my life! / Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs."
. . and I split off with the radicals, which led to rows with the boss and 'the party,' and I lost my
One of those children was five-year-old Walt Whitman, who, as he recorded in "My First Reading—Lafayette
"My First Reading—Lafayette." Specimen Days. Vol. 1 of Prose Works 1892. Ed. Floyd Stovall.
and 73d Years of These States," "A Boston Ballad (1854)," "There Was a Child Went Forth," "Who Learns My
My fit is mastering me!"
Ballad (1854)," would be hard to fit into "Song of Myself," and the omission of the slight "Who Learns My
himself the murderous impulse which may precipitate his fits of existential anxiety and sexual guilt: "My
—They retard my book very much" (Correspondence 1:44).
reveals a darker Whitman, suspicious, uncertain, and lonely: "Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my
Leaves contains only six new poems ("Inscription" [later "One's-Self I Sing" and "Small the Theme of My
most recognizable image of the "Ship of State" had been published in the popular 1865–1866 text, "O Captain
My Captain!
Although one additional poem, "Come, said my Soul," would later be restored to the Leaves as epigraph
Between the poems and the essay, filling pages 405–422, appeared the second annex, "Good-Bye my Fancy
of his long labors: "L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my
work, books especially, has pass'd; and waiting till fully after that, I have given (pages 423–438) my
by the 1889 text of the poems of Leaves of Grass; the two annexes, "Sands at Seventy" and "Good-Bye my
My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon, 1985. Feehan, Michael.
pieces, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865-1866) and one of his best-known poems, "O Captain
My Captain!" (1865-1866).
Whitman intensely admired Lincoln from the late 1850s onward, remarking at one point, "After my dear,
"Hush'd Be the Camps To-day" and the other Lincoln poems ("Lilacs," "O Captain!
Robert LeighDavisMemoranda During the War [1875–1876]Memoranda During the War [1875–1876]"My idea is
liked it, and on 20 April 1884 he wrote to Anne Gilchrist, "I have moved into a little old shanty of my
My South! / O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!"
rocky founded island—shores where ever gayly dash the coming, going, hurrying sea waves " ("Mannahatta [My
GregoryEiselein'O Captain! My Captain!' [1865]'O Captain! My Captain!'
[1865]Though stylistically atypical of his verse, "O Captain! My Captain!"
The rhyme, meter, stanza, and refrain in "O Captain" are conventional.
Although the ship has weathered the storm and re-entered the harbor safe and victorious, the captain
'O Captain! My Captain!' [1865]
In his manuscript notebooks he wrote of "the chanted Hymn whose tremendous sentiment shall uncage in my
or 'Lucrezia,' and Auber's 'Massaniello,' or Rossini's 'William Tell' and 'Gazza Ladra,' were among my
Whitman commented on the singing of this "strangely overpraised woman," writing that she "never touched my
days in Specimen Days and in an essay, "The Old Bowery," collected in the prose section of Good-Bye My
fruitlessly, the boy questions also only to hear the ocean's final assertion of death, and the man notes "My
five times and say blankly, " But my mate no more, no more with me!
My Soul and I: The Inner Life of Walt Whitman. Boston: Beacon, 1985. Killingsworth, M. Jimmie.
Abolitionist author of The Public Life of Captain John Brown and editor of the North American Review,
had strong reservations about it, and Whitman later referred to it as "the horrible dismemberment of my
I shall only say the espousing principle of those lines so gives breath of life to my whole scheme that
Whitman said in "A Backward Glance," "I have not gain'd acceptance of my own time, but have fallen back
"My Boys and Girls" (1844), critics agree, is a reminiscence about Whitman's many brothers and sisters
argument of the earth," a fragmentary but certain knowledge: "that the spirit of God is the brother of my
own," "that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers," "that
trance-like state similar to that he entered in section 5: "Wrench'd and sweaty—calm and cool then my
together in the same top floor bedroom, and when they traveled together Whitman referred to him as "my
one point, he wrote of his gratitude for Stafford's help in his medical recovery, declaring, " you, my
caused something of a scandal; Traubel recalled that neighbors went to his mother and "protested against my
Thee, seated coil'd in evil times, my Country, with craft and black dismay—with every meanness, treason
—are but parts of the Venture which my Poems entirely are. (11) It is this type of indirection that
For instance, in section 35 of "Song of Myself," Whitman recounts a tale involving Amy's father, Captain
The poet's quaternary on the death of Lincoln includes Whitman's most popular poem, "O Captain!
My Captain!," and one of his most critically acclaimed, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
appears early, in section 2, as an image of oppression ("O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my
Lilacs," all disparate elements have been reconciled: "Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my
In "My Boys and Girls" Whitman fondly recalls carrying on his shoulders young George, "his legs dangling
down upon my breast, while I trotted for sport down a lane or over the fields" (248).
Fredericksburg, Second Bull Run, the Wilderness, and Petersburg was reflected in the stripes (sergeant, captain
Only late in life could Whitman acknowledge, "As I get older, and latent traits come out, I see my father's
In 1888, after Alcott's death, Whitman said, "Alcott was always my friend" (With Walt Whitman 1:333)
Whitman's "Going Somewhere" was written for her: "My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend, / (Now
"Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all, / Faces, varieties, postures
" sequence: "Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war, / But soon my
fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself, / To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or
"Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, / Straight and swift to my wounded I go."
Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction . . . the most profound lesson of my
& Collect from Rees Welsh after one printing, and later published November Boughs (1888), Good-Bye My
Hannah Whitman appears in Whitman's story "My Boys and Girls" (1844) as a fair and delicate youth.
She married a sea captain named Davis, but was soon widowed.
constituted true democracy, yet again lauded his poetry for its "bigness and naïvety" and singled out "My
Captain, O my Captain" [sic] as "surely one of the most tender and beautiful poems in any language"
his remarks to others of how it was to live with Louisa and George: "[I] have for three years, during my
as at an inn—and the whole affair in precisely the same business spirit" (Correspondence 3:47), and "My
the morning, & keeps me a good bed and room—all of which is very acceptable—(then, for a fellow of my
He characterized him as "my stout, gentlemanly friend, free talker" (356).
Within my bosom reside two opposing elements" (Bergman 11).
PatrickMcGuire"My Boys and Girls" (1844)"My Boys and Girls" (1844)While this sketch first appeared in
"My Boys and Girls" (1844)
Like the bachelor-speaker of "My Boys and Girls," the speaker here knows that the way to keep his heart
Childhood here, as in "My Boys and Girls," calls up other reminders of the sorrows of the world and especially
and other customs of the ancient Egyptians, in whose country I have passed the last twenty years of my
"History of My Whitman Studies." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 9 (1991): 91–100. Blair, Stanley S.
Specimen Days (1882), November Boughs (1888), and Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) are important Whitman sources
Whitman often commented upon the genius of Booth and called him "one of the grandest revelations of my