Leaves of Grass

In the second edition of Leaves of Grass in 1856, this poem was titled “Lesson Poem.” It acquired its present title in a separate publication, Passage to India (1871). Its final version in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass omitted the date of his birth, that he was 36 in 1885, and his height of six feet, and the final two lines. Identifying himself in such a specific way may have seemed counter to the universality he constructs for the poem’s speaker. 

Like in many of the other poems, Whitman’s speaker is universal in his sympathies. Many different types of people, some socio-economic or ideological opposites, others connected in other ways, can learn his lesson: “Boss and journeyman and apprentice? . . . . churchman and atheist? / The stupid and the wise thinker . . . . parents and offspring . . . . merchant and clerk and porter and customer . . . . editor, author, artist and schoolboy?” (Lines 2-3). The speaker wants all to learn his deep knowledge of how life can be most fully lived and expressed—there are no barriers to the chain of lessons, each of which, once absorbed, automatically leads into the next. The speaker’s knowledge is already the property of humankind: It is “Beautiful” and “wonderful” (Lines 10-12)—though even these words are inadequate.

Whitman directly addresses his reader; his sense is that writer and audience have a direct connection via the poem: “[M]y soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other” (Line 22). This “embrace” is communal and comes with a transfer of knowledge: By thinking his thoughts, the speaker can “remind” the reader of them (as if the knowledge is already lying within readers) so that “you think them and know them to be just as true” (Line 25). In other words, the speaker knows that all people know the lessons already—they only need to have it pointed out to them.

Immortality is another theme of the poem, as it is in other first edition poems, including “Song of Myself, “To Think of Time,” and “The Sleepers,” as well as Whitman’s later poems such as “Song of Prudence” (1856). Immortality here comes through reincarnation: Human beings and animals are reborn as each soul participates in the cycle of life and death over vast periods of time. This idea is also known as metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls. According to this poem, the life of a man or woman via their soul extends over an unfathomable amount of time—something we should rejoice in: “Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as everyone is immortal, / I know it is wonderful” (Lines 19-20).