As At Thy Portals Also Death

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



AS at thy portals also death,
   Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,
   To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,
   To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,
   (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,
   I sit by the form in the coffin,
   I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,
         the closed eyes in the coffin;)
   To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth, life,
         love, to me the best,
   I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,
   And set a tombstone here.                                          10

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

32 sec read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCCDEFEGHIJ
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 657
Words 108
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12

Walt Whitman

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

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