Analysis of These, I, Singing In Spring
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and
joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world--but soon I pass the
gates,
Now along the pond-side--now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there,
pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and
partly cover them--Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
Alone I had thought--yet soon a troop gathers around me, 10
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive--thicker they come,
a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens--tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in
Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me--and returns again,
never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades--this
Calamus-root shall, 20
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have--giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it--but only to them that love, as I myself am capable
of loving.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIBJKELMNOPQRMSTUVBWMXYZ1 2 3 PM4 5 Q6 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11100101110 111110110011100 1 01111101011 0101100100111110 1 101011110001010101 11010110101111 110110100 1100101111010 1010101111 1100100111111 1001001011010100 10 01111110110011 1111101010101111 1 101011111011011 011010010 0100101001111011 10101101001010111 1110111 1111101111110110 100111101 111010100111 011111101010001 11111111001100101 1011011 01111111010111 111 01111110111011 01110001111001 01110110001010 111011011110 1001111111111101 1 1001111111101011 1111101010111101 1111111011111111100 110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,215 |
Words | 361 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 40 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,535 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 407 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 08, 2023
- 1:49 min read
- 152 Views
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"These, I, Singing In Spring" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38189/these%2C-i%2C-singing-in-spring>.
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