Leaves of Grass

In “Song of Myself,” Whitman’s speaker separates the full self from his physical being: “I . . . am not contained between my hat and boots” (Line 124). Instead, he has felt a higher level of being: As his consciousness expanded to the infinite, he felt at one with the ultimate reality of the universe. This vision revealed to him the innermost secret of existence: “Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth” (Line 82). For the speaker, the larger, cosmic self that emerged from the experience—one of bliss, happiness, and love—has replaced his own self. Thus, when the speaker claims that there can be no one “more wonderful than myself” (Line 1275), he is not indulging in an arrogant egotism—he is instead holding up the self as an exemplar of perfection universally. He knows that the “kelson of the creation is love” (Line 86). A kelson strengthens the hull of a ship and is used here as a metaphor to show that love binds together everything in creation. Now he knows the self to be boundless and limitless—an eternal ocean of being that ripples out to and permeates the multiplicity of creation. 

In the poem, and the collection as a whole, this eternal truth gives to all things their meaning; the poet’s task is to awaken all men and women to the fact that it also lies within them. This does not elevate the poet above others; rather, it makes him all the more cognizant of the equality of all people and their connection to the almost equal divine: “And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own, / And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own, / And that all the men ever born are also my brothers . . . . and the women my sisters and lovers” (Lines 83-85). 

This conception of the expanded, eternal self is the key to understanding how “Song of Myself” in particular, and the collection as a whole, imagine the sublimity of the infinite—a common subject of interest to the Romantic movement in general. The speaker erases the line between interior self and exterior world, conflating his own existence with that of the universe around him. If the two are the same, then their infinite scope cannot be circumscribed by quantifiable means: “I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass” (Line 407) and “I was never measured, and never will be measured” (Line 1198). 

The divine consciousness that permeates everything is also a field of infinite connection, which allows the speaker to feel sympathy and kinship with all men and women everywhere, and in the past, present, and future: “I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself” (Line 128). He merges his identity with that of others; moreover, he insists on assigning equal value to each human being in American society, whoever they are and whatever social status they possess: “In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less, / And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them (Lines 401-02). This expanded, shared identity becomes the basis for his compassionate vision of the democratic ideal—a diverse nation that is also a unity where every individual can, like the seer-poet, “also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun” (Line 564), aware of their divine-human nature.