Analysis of Song of Myself, X
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game,
Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun
by my side.
The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the
sparkle and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout
joyously from the deck.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a
good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-
kettle.
I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far
west, the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly
smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large
thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins,
his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held
his bride by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight
locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd
to her feet.
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him
limpsy and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured
him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and
bruis'd feet,
And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave
him some coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his
awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and
ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and
pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the
corner.
Scheme | XAXXXB CXXX ACXDX XXAXXXXXXXE BXFXXFGEXXXXGXGXCD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01100101011 100011111001 00101100111101 100100100111 10011010111101 111 01010110011110 1001 1110011110111 1101 01011001100111 1111101101010 11 111111111010 10 11010101000101001 1011011 0100111111001 101110011101 110101110 10110101111001 101001010101111 11101 111100111011 10100100100101 101 010111110111 1111010011010 101111010111 101 011111010110001 1 011001011110100 11 0110111011101 11111 001010011010101 100 001010101011110 10 111101011101000 11 1111111101101100 10 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,820 |
Words | 341 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 5, 11, 18 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 285 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 68 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 1:45 min read
- 248 Views
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