Give Me The Splendid, Silent Sun

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




   GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
   Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
   Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;
   Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape;
   Give me fresh corn and wheat--give me serene-moving animals, teaching
         content;
   Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the
         Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
   Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can
         walk undisturb'd;
   Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman, of whom I should never
         tire;
   Give me a perfect child--give me, away, aside from the noise of the
         world, a rural, domestic life;
   Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for
         my own ears only;                                            10
   Give me solitude--give me Nature--give me again, O Nature, your
         primal sanities!
   --These, demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement,
         and rack'd by the war-strife;)
   These to procure, incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,
   While yet incessantly asking, still I adhere to my city;
   Day upon day, and year upon year, O city, walking your streets,
   Where you hold me enchain'd a certain time, refusing to give me up;
   Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich'd of soul--you give me forever
         faces;
   (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries;
   I see my own soul trampling down what it ask'd for.)

   Keep your splendid, silent sun;                                    20
   Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods;
   Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and
         orchards;
   Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields, where the Ninth-month bees hum;
   Give me faces and streets! give me these phantoms incessant and
         endless along the trottoirs!
   Give me interminable eyes! give me women! give me comrades and lovers
         by the thousand!
   Let me see new ones every day! let me hold new ones by the hand every
         day!
   Give me such shows! give me the streets of Manhattan!
   Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of
         the trumpets and drums!
   (The soldiers in companies or regiments--some, starting away, flush'd
         and reckless;
   Some, their time up, returning, with thinn'd ranks--young, yet very
         old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)                      30
   --Give me the shores and the wharves heavy-fringed with the black
         ships!
   O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!
   The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!
   The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the torch-
         light procession!
   The dense brigade, bound for the war, with high piled military wagons
         following;
   People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants;
   Manhattan streets, with their powerful throbs, with the beating
         drums, as now;
   The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even
         the sight of the wounded;)
   Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus--with varied
         chorus, and light of the sparkling eyes;
   Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.                           40

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

2:36 min read
245

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBXAXCXXXDDCEFGFBXEXGXXDXHF IXJXXJBXJGXIXXXXGAXXKGXIXAXAXXXKHG
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 3,377
Words 509
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 28, 34

Walt Whitman

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

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