Leaves of Grass

In the 1856 edition, this poem was titled “Poem of the Daily Work of the Workmen and Workwomen of These States”; in 1867 it was titled “To Working-men.” It acquired its present title, “A Song for Occupations,” in 1881. 

Whitman deleted the first seven lines of the 1855 version, losing the intimacy of “Come closer to me, / Push close my lovers and take the best I possess, / Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess” (Lines 1-3). Instead, the opening lines of the 1881 edition state the topic of the poem more directly: “A song for occupations! / In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments, and find the eternal meanings” (Lines 1-3). He then specifies his audience: “Workmen and Workwomen!” (Line 4). The poem is indeed a “song for occupations,” but it is also much more, as the phrase “eternal meanings” hints.

The main drive of the poem is speaker’s desire to pass on his knowledge of the essence of life to the “workman or workwoman” (Line 16). This knowledge is not a secret, but the common possession of all: The speaker reminds everyone that they have always had it in their possession: “[F]or you whoever you are . . . . it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you” (Line 51). Moreover, the whole universe shares in it, including the “sun and stars that float in the open air” (Line 56). Finally, the speaker names this essence as a specific kind of “happiness” (Line 57)—a core quality of existence that can never be diminished or erased. It is mysterious or elusive only because “[i]t is not what is printed or preached or discussed . . . . / It is not to be put in a book” (Lines 49-50). Instead, it is embedded in human consciousness; the speaker calls on everyone to recognize it within themselves: “Happiness not in another place, but this place . . not for another hour, but this hour” (Line 167).  

Central to the argument of the poem is the need for a larger sense of self. This realization should demonstrate that humans are the originators of things like religion: They have worth, but “they have all grown out of you and may grow out of you still, / It is not they who give the life . . . . it is you who give the life” (Lines 79-80). In other words, people must not look outside of themselves for meaning, but honor what lies most deeply within them. Social status, personality, and one’s actions are not important. Outward and inward imperfections also do not matter: “[I]f you are greasy or pimpled—or that you was once drunk, or a thief, or diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute” (Line 26), your “immortal” nature remains untouched (Line 26).

The speaker’s other purpose is to remind all people of their worth, which is not defined by their life story but intrinsic to their own selves. The speaker and those he addresses are equals: “If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you” (Line 23). Unusually for Whitman’s time, this message of Social, Political, and Spiritual Equality applies to women as much as men in all respects:

The wife—and she is not one jot less than the husband,

The daughter—and she is just as good as the son,

The mother—and she is every bit as much as the father (Lines 36-38).

As the speaker details a democracy of souls and the honest labor that they perform in their occupations, he makes it clear that are no hierarchies here either. It does not matter what a person does for a living: The dazzling array of occupations and the tools used for them that takes up more than a quarter of the poem underscores that each is honored equally.

Whitman ends the poem with a dose of atypical wry humor. We must value the human self more than inert objects in the material world—otherwise, we run the risk of mistaking the inanimate for what is genuinely alive and true:

When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the nightwatchman’s daughter,

When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,

I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women (Lines 176-78).