Analysis of Poem Of Remembrance For A Girl Or A Boy
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!
Remember the organic compact of These States,
Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights,
life, liberty, equality of man,
Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States,
signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and read by
Washington at the head of the army,
Remember the purposes of the founders,--Remember Washington;
Remember the copious humanity streaming from every direction toward
America;
Remember the hospitality that belongs to nations and men; (Cursed be
nation, woman, man, without hospitality!)
Remember, government is to subserve individuals,
Not any, not the President, is to have one jot more than you or me,
Not any habitan of America is to have one jot less than you or me. 10
Anticipate when the thirty or fifty millions, are to become the
hundred, or two hundred millions, of equal freemen and
freewomen, amicably joined.
Recall ages--One age is but a part--ages are but a part;
The eternal equilibrium of things is great, and the eternal overthrow
of things is great,
And there is another paradox.
Recall the angers, bickerings, delusions, superstitions, of the idea
of caste,
Recall the bloody cruelties and crimes.
Anticipate the best women;
I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to
spread through all These States,
I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless,
just the same as a boy.
Anticipate your own life--retract with merciless power,
Shirk nothing--retract in time--Do you see those errors, diseases,
weaknesses, lies, thefts?
Do you see that lost character?--Do you see decay, consumption, rum-
drinking, dropsy, fever, mortal cancer or inflammation? 20
Do you see death, and the approach of death?
Scheme | XAXXAXBCXDBBXBB DXX X XXX DXX CXAAX XXXXCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101011111 010001010111 01001101111101 1100010011 010111101010101 10101100100011 1001011010 01001001010010100 0100100010010110001001 0100 010001001011100111 10101010100 0101001110100 11010101111111111 1101101001111111111 01010101101011010 10111010110100 110001 110111101101101 0010010011110001010 1111 01101010 1010101001010010 11 10101001 0100110 11111111001011011 11111 110111111111001 101101 01011101110010 1100101111110010 10011 11111100111010101 10101010101010 1111000111 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,938 |
Words | 294 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 15, 3, 1, 3, 3, 5, 6 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 39 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 201 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:28 min read
- 54 Views
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