WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet-for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk-with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
To The States.
Analysis, meaning and summary of Walt Whitman's poem To The States.
3 Comments
Leave a Reply to Ira Huddleston Cancel reply
Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Walt Whitman better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.
as said, 1900 is way too late for any Whitman poem to have been written – he died in 1892
the various “editions” of “Leaves of Grass” in which BOTH poems – the one erroneously entitled “To The States” and the REAL “To the States” that I quoted
appeared very early, 1855 was first edition, 1892 was last – his “death-bed” edition
1900 is way too late for when any leaves of grass poems were written
The poem quoted as “To the States” is NOT the Walt Whitman poem entitled “To the States” – which goes:
To the States – or any one of them – or any city of these states – RESIST MUCH, OBEY LITTLE
For once unquestioning obedience – once fully enslaved –
once fully enslaved – no nation, state, city of this earth
ever after regains its liberty
The poem that was quoted IS Whitman, it IS from Leaves of Grass – its a good poem – and BOTH are so appropriate tonight – but the quoted poem is simply NOT the one entitled “TO THE STATES” in Leaves of Grass