To Think Of Time

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




   To think of time--of all that retrospection!
   To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

   Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
   Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
   Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?

   Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?
   If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.

   To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were
         flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive!
   To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part!
   To think that we are now here, and bear our part!                  10

   Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without an accouchement!
   Not a day passes--not a minute or second, without a corpse!

   The dull nights go over, and the dull days also,
   The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
   The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible
         look for an answer,
   The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters
         are sent for,
   Medicines stand unused on the shelf--(the camphor-smell has long
         pervaded the rooms,)
   The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the
         dying,
   The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
   The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,              20
   The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it,
   It is palpable as the living are palpable.

   The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight,
   But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously
         on the corpse.

   To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials!
   To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits
         ripen, and act upon others as upon us now--yet not act upon us!
   To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking
         great interest in them--and we taking no interest in them!

   To think how eager we are in building our houses!
   To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent!

   (I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy
         or eighty years at most,                                     30
   I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)

   Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth--they never
         cease--they are the burial lines,
   He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall
         surely be buried.

   A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,
   A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
   Each after his kind:
   Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf--posh and ice in the river,
         half-frozen mud in the streets, a gray, discouraged sky
         overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month,
   A hearse and stages--other vehicles give place--the funeral of an old
         Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.

   Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the
         gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living
         alight, the hearse uncloses,
   The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on
         the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,                40
   The mound above is flatted with the spades--silence,
   A minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done,
   He is decently put away--is there anything more?

   He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,
         able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready
         with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate
         hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew
         low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a
         contribution, died, aged forty-one years--and that was his
         funeral.

   Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-
         weather clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter,
         hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody,
         headway, man before and man behind, good day's work, bad day's
         work, pet stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at
         night;
   To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers--and he
         there takes no interest in them!

   The markets, the government, the working-man's wages--to think what
         account they are
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:32 min read
171

Quick analysis:

Scheme AB ACD EE FXBB BG XFHFIJXXKEELBH BMG CXXEN XB BBB FXXB BABFXXBI KECAAXAJ EBBDKLH BFBXBBMN BX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 4,424
Words 696
Stanzas 16
Stanza Lengths 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 14, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 7, 8, 2

Walt Whitman

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

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