The Texture of the Sixth Poem of Song of Myself :: Song of Myself Essays

The Texture of the Sixth Poem of Song of Myself   In number six of Whitmans poetic serial publication Song of Myself, it seems that he is trying to convey the point that to die is not what people make it out to be. Whitman throughout many of the poems in this series, describes death as lucky and beneficial. He also explains how death leads to the beginning of life in this poem. The tone at the very beginning of this poem seems a bit youthful. oddly when the question What is grass? is posed to him by a child. This opening line gives you a great mental picture of a child about the years of five or six, walking up and asking innocently a question that you cannot answer. By using the line, fetching it to me with full/ hands Whitman gives you that image veracious from the beginning. From there he goes into this sort of naïve tone, guessing what grass means. By doing so he shows himself to be mortal and not all-knowing.   During this time in the poem, he gives beautiful me taphorical imagery, comparing the grass to other things and illustrating a better idea of what the grass is. Also during this speculation period, the wording becomes denser, as the ideas become complex. Whitman moves from the single-lined callow voice, into the adult stage of the poem. Here, he becomes surer of what the grass is and does less guessing. Around line 101, Whitman starts toward the turning point in the essay, describing the death aspect of the grass. Words like unconsolable change the mood of the poem to a slower, sadder state. At line 110, the poem takes a sudden change and reads much quicker. It changes into a kind of argument and Whitman speaks more than affirmatively. Now it seems as if he has been enlightened and understands what the grass is. The feeling of death changes to life and darkness changes to light.   In a subtle way, he gives the reader a feeling of lightness and life, because in the last four lines he begins all of the lines with As and as you read it you get that choral Hallelujah feeling. Whitman shows you the light. He tells you why death is a good thing. There is no more fear. To die is different from what any one supposed, and/luckier.