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.