jackieg

In this sequence, Songs of Parting, Whitman seems to bring his poetry full circle. He began with lamenting about himself, and how he loved himself and everyone should, in turn, love themselves as well. He’s celebrating life as it is happening and he feels that this is something that isn’t to be taken for granted. In his war poetry he illustrates the power of war and what it does to the human spirt and the nation as a whole. He starts off with the feeling of unity and slowly progresses to what war actually does to a person; the reality of the toll war takes on you. In this series Whitman seems to celebrate the life that one has and the realities of a life ending. The poem that spoke to me the most was the very last in the sequence: So Long!

When one read’s this poem they can actually feel how Whitman feels. This poem seems to be illuminated with his ideas of what he wants to carry one when he is gone. He acknowledges his own accomplishments in his writing,

“I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I
sung, and the songs of life and death,
And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.”

He goes on to list, as he is most famous for doing, all of the things he finds so important for human life. This poem seems to be is last words or his last will. If it is the last things we do, we should maintain all of these things for the good of humanity. Whitman then imagines his own death and his words ceasing. You feel like you are with him at his deathbed and then hearing him speak to you from this unknown world.

This is the perfect poem for him to end his work. It’s ironic that he asks us not to forget him because at the time, I’m sure he probably thought that his life’s work was going to have gone completely unnoticed. The last line is particularly great because he mentions himself disembodied, which is true because he gave so much of himself to Leaves of Grass over the span of his lifetime. Even while he was alive, he put his soul into it to make it the great work that it is today. At the time, I’m sure he didn’t think he would be triumphant with the masses, but he most definitely was triumphant in himself. I felt that the tone of this poem was a great reflection on his life, because it seemed to be more celebratory rather than mournful. He merely wants us to remember him in his work and accept this “kiss” he gives all of us. I’m certain that over the years, Whitman was granted his dying wish.