Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THINK OF THE SOUL, by WALT WHITMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THINK OF THE SOUL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
Last Line: See, hear, and am silent
Subject(s): Men; Women; Soul; Racism; Past; Death; Social Commentaries; Grief; Conduct Of Life


1.

THINK of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.

Think of loving and being loved;
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that see

Think of the past;
I warn you that in a little while, others will find their past in you and your times.

The race is never separated''"nor man nor woman escapes;
All is inextricable''"things, spirits, nature, nations,you too''"from precedents you come.

Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers,of the earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons''"brother of slaves, felons, idiots, and of insane and di

Think of the time when you was not yet born;
Think of times you stood at the side of the dying;
Think of the time when your own body will be dying.

Think of spiritual results,
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does every one of its objects pass into spiritual resul

Think of manhood, and you to be a man;
Do you count manhood, and the sweet of manhood,nothing?

Think of womanhood, and you to be a woman;
The creation is womanhood;
Have I not said that womanhood involves all?
Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?

2.

UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the superbest man of the earth;
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest man;
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can a man be form'd of perfect body;
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the wo-man, can come the poems of man''"(only thence hav
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can appear the strong and arrogant
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only thence come the brawny embraces
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain, come all the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded;
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy:
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity''"but every jot of the greatness of man
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.

3.

NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over''"the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;
I walk by myself''"I stand and look at the stars,which I think now I never realized before.

Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.

How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumfi!
The same Old Man and Soul''"the same old aspirations, and the same content.

I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other glob

Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as those of the earth,

Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.

I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me''"as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

4.

THE world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea''"the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds''" the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold''"the play of light through the water
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks''"coral, gluten, grass, rushes''"and the aliment of the swimmers
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
Passions there''"wars, pursuits, tribes''"sight in those ocean-depths''"breathing that thick-breathi
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who walk this
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.

5.

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deedsdone
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband''"I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid''"I see these sights on th
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny''"I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea''"I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd, to preserve the
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon ne
All these''"All the meanness and agony without end,
I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.





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