Analysis of From Pent-up Aching Rivers
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
FROM pent-up, aching rivers;
From that of myself, without which I were nothing;
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole
among men;
From my own voice resonant--singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children, and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each, the body correlative attracting!
O for you, whoever you are, your correlative body! O it, more than
all else, you delighting!) 10
--From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day;
From native moments--from bashful pains--singing them;
Singing something yet unfound, though I have diligently sought it,
many a long year;
Singing the true song of the Soul, fitful, at random;
Singing what, to the Soul, entirely redeem'd her, the faithful one,
even the prostitute, who detain'd me when I went to the city;
Singing the song of prostitutes;
Renascent with grossest Nature, or among animals;
Of that--of them, and what goes with them, my poems informing;
Of the smell of apples and lemons--of the pairing of birds,
Of the wet of woods--of the lapping of waves, 20
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land--I them chanting;
The overture lightly sounding--the strain anticipating;
The welcome nearness--the sight of the perfect body;
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back
lying and floating;
The female form approaching--I, pensive, love-flesh tremulous,
aching;
The divine list, for myself or you, or for any one, making;
The face--the limbs--the index from head to foot, and what it
arouses;
The mystic deliria--the madness amorous--the utter abandonment;
(Hark close, and still, what I now whisper to you,
I love you---O you entirely possess me, 30
O I wish that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off--O
free and lawless,
Two hawks in the air--two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless
than we;)
--The furious storm through me careering--I passionately trembling;
The oath of the inseparableness of two together--of the woman that
loves me, and whom I love more than my life--that oath
swearing;
(O I willingly stake all, for you!
O let me be lost, if it must be so!
O you and I--what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other, and exhaust
each other, if it must be so:)
--From the master--the pilot I yield the vessel to;
The general commanding me, commanding all--from him permission
taking; 40
From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long, as it
is;)
From sex--From the warp and from the woof;
(To talk to the perfect girl who understands me,
To waft to her these from my own lips--to effuse them from my own
body;)
From privacy--from frequent repinings alone;
From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person not near;
From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting of fingers
through my hair and beard;
From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom;
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting with
excess;
From what the divine husband knows--from the work of fatherhood; 50
From exultation, victory, and relief--from the bedfellow's embrace in
the night;
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side, the pliant coverlid off-throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave--and me just as unwilling
to leave,
(Yet a moment, O tender waiter, and I return;)
--From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
From the night, a moment, I, emerging, flitting out,
Celebrate you, act divine--and you, children prepared for, 60
And you, stalwart loins.
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010 11110111010 1111010110100101111 011 11111001001 100111010 10011011000101110 10010010010 100111110 1110010101010 1110101111101111 111010 10101111101 110101101101 101011111100011 10011 1001110110110 10110101000100101 1001010111111010 1001110 11110101100 111101111110010 101110010101011 10111101011 101101101011110 01001010010100 010101100110 01010100011100111 10010 01101011011100 10 001111111110110 01010101111011 010 01010101000100100 11011111011 111110100011 1111101011010110011 1010 11001110100011110 11 010011101011000100 011011101010101 110111111111 10 111001111 1111111111 110111111101111 111111101101110001 11011111 1010010110101 01000101010111010 10 11011001111111 1 111010101 11100111011 111011111111111 10 1100110101 110110101011011 1011011101010110 11101 1010110101110 1011011111011101 1 11001101101110 11100001101010 01 10110111101 101101001 10101001 11110101110 101101011110111010 11 1010110100101 101011010101 1010101010101 1011010110011 01101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 4,141 |
Words | 650 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 80 |
Lines Amount | 80 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,885 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 760 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 19, 2023
- 3:17 min read
- 121 Views
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"From Pent-up Aching Rivers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38015/from-pent-up-aching-rivers>.
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