Analysis of Myself And Mine
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
MYSELF and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat--to take good aim with a gun--to sail a
boat--to manage horses--to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly--to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea.
Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers--I welcome them also;)
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women.
Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
Supreme Gods, that The States may realize them, walking and
talking.
Let me have my own way; 10
Let others promulge the laws--I will make no account of the laws;
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace--I hold up agitation
and conflict;
I praise no eminent man--I rebuke to his face the one that was
thought most worthy.
(Who are you? you mean devil! And what are you secretly guilty of,
all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? Will you grub and chatter all your
life?)
(And who are you--blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages,
reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak a single word?)
Let others finish specimens--I never finish specimens;
I shower them by exhaustless laws, as Nature does, fresh and modern
continually.
I give nothing as duties; 20
What others give as duties, I give as living impulses;
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)
Let others dispose of questions--I dispose of nothing--I arouse
unanswerable questions;
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself, that draw me so close by tender
directions and indirections?
I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but
listen to my enemies--as I myself do;
I charge you, too, forever, reject those who would expound me--for I
cannot expound myself;
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me;
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.
After me, vista! 30
O, I see life is not short, but immeasurably long;
I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a
steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries--and still of centuries.
I will follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth;
I perceive I have no time to lose.
Scheme | ABCXD AXC XDXX XXCXXD XEXE XFX GXD HFD XGXAD XXXXDD BXBAH XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101010 1101111111101110 1110101010110 111000101111011010 01110101000101101 1110100 11111010100110110 1101011010101010 1110100 1110111010111 0111011101100 10 111111 110101111101101 110110010111111010 010 11110011011110111 1110 11111100111100101 111 1110111111101011 1 0111111110100 0100 01011111111110101 1101010011010100 110111111011010 01000 1110110 110111011110100 11101101010 11001110101110101 00010 111110101011 101111111111110 01001 111011010011111 10111001111 11110100111101111 10011 111111101110111 1111111111111 10110 1111111101001 111101110110100 1010 100100101100011100 111011010010101101 101111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,592 |
Words | 410 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 3, 4, 6, 4, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 5, 2 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 147 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 45 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:03 min read
- 77 Views
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"Myself And Mine" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38067/myself-and-mine>.
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