As I lay With Head In Your Lap, Camerado

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




   AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado,
   The confession I made I resume--what I said to you in the open air I
         resume:
   I know I am restless, and make others so;
   I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
   (Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
   It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped
         artilleryman;)
   For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle
         them;
   I am more resolute because all have denied me, than I could ever have
         been had all accepted me;
   I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions,
         majorities, nor ridicule;
   And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me;  10
   And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
   ...Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and
         still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
   Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 29, 2023

54 sec read
240

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFAGHIJKLMKKAGA
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 1,017
Words 178
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 19

Walt Whitman

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

All Walt Whitman poems | Walt Whitman Books

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