Analysis of Song Of The Redwood-Tree

Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)




   A CALIFORNIA song!
   A prophecy and indirection--a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
   A chorus of dryads, fading, departing--or hamadryads departing;
   A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
   Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren,
   Farewell, O earth and sky--farewell, ye neighboring waters;
   My time has ended, my term has come.

Along the northern coast,
   Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves,                10
   In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,
   With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,
   With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong
         arms,
   Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes--there in the Redwood
         forest dense,
   I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.

The choppers heard not--the camp shanties echoed not;
   The quick-ear'd teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,
   As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to
         join the refrain;
   But in my soul I plainly heard.

Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,                                20
   Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,
   Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs--out of its foot-thick bark,
   That chant of the seasons and time--chant, not of the past only, but
         the future.

You untold life of me,
   And all you venerable and innocent joys,
   Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, 'mid rain, and many a summer
         sun,
   And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;
   O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul's strong joys, unreck'd by
         man;
   (For know I bear the soul befitting me--I too have consciousness,
         identity,
   And all the rocks and mountains have--and all the earth;)          30
   Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
   Our time, our term has come.

Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,
   We who have grandly fill'd our time;
   With Nature's calm content, and tacit, huge delight,
   We welcome what we wrought for through the past,
   And leave the field for them.

For them predicted long,
   For a superber Race--they too to grandly fill their time,
   For them we abdicate--in them ourselves, ye forest kings!          40
   In them these skies and airs--these mountain peaks--Shasta--Nevadas,
   These huge, precipitous cliffs--this amplitude--these valleys grand--
         Yosemite,
   To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.

Then to a loftier strain,
   Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,
   As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,
   Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.

Not wan from Asia's fetishes,
   Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughter-house,
   (Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and
         scaffolds every where,)                                      50
   But come from Nature's long and harmless throes--peacefully builded
         thence,
   These virgin lands--Lands of the Western Shore,
   To the new Culminating Man--to you, the Empire New,
   You, promis'd long, we pledge, we dedicate.

You occult, deep volitions,
   You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois'd on yourself--
         giving, not taking law,
   You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and
         love, and aught that comes from life and love,
   You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age
         upon age, working in Death the same as Life,)
   You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould
         the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,
   You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal'd, but ever
         alert,                                                       60
   You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be
         unconscious of yourselves,
   Unswerv'd by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;
   You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts,
         statutes, literatures,
   Here build your homes for good--establish here--These areas entire,
         Lands of the Western Shore,
   We pledge, we dedicate to you.

For man of you--your characteristic Race,
   Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow--here tower, proportionate to
         Nature,
   Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or
         


Scheme ABCDE FGH IXJXAXXEC KKLMX XDXXN JXNFXDXOJXXH GPXXX APXEXJX MXXX EXQBIERLX EXXQXXXXSNXJXOXENRL SLNR
Poetic Form
Metre 00101 0100010111111 010111001011010 010010101110101 11010101001101 1110 111011110010 111101111 010101 1110111001 000111010001010 1011100100101 1101110101001011 1 101101110101001 101 11010111110 010110110101 0111001011111 101101111101011 1001 10111101 1001111001 1111011011011 11110101111111 1110100111101101 010 101111 011100001001 0100101111111010010 1 0011010011 10110101111111 1 1111010101111100 0100 010101010101 110101010101 10110111 111101010 111101101 110110010101 1101111101 010111 110101 101111110111 11110010011101 0111011101101 11010011101101 0100 1101010100 1101001 1101010101 11010100101 10110111 111101 111101010101 1001101111111110 101001 11110101011001 1 1101110101 10110011101001 110111110 10111 11001000110111101 101101 11001100111110 101111101 101101011010100101001 01110010111 110111000110101 01101011101 11010011001101110 01 1101010001000111 10101 111010100101010 1100101101111 101 11111101011100010 110101 1111011 1111100101 111101010111001001 10 11011100101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 4,388
Words 643
Sentences 15
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 5, 3, 9, 5, 5, 12, 5, 7, 4, 9, 19, 4
Lines Amount 87
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 256
Words per stanza (avg) 66
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

3:17 min read
621

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. more…

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