from Song of Myself

5

10

15

52.
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud° of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the

shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse° my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

1. What, in your opinion, is the most important—or most interesting, or most puzzling—line in Whitman’s poem?
2. How does Whitman show his connection to the natural world in this poem? For example, what qualities does he say he shares with the spotted hawk?
3. What verb tense does Whitman use in this poem and other selections from “Song of Myself”? How would the effect have been different if the speaker had spoken in a different tense?
4. What might Whitman mean by line 10: “If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles”?
5. The first line of “Song of Myself” is “I celebrate myself, and sing myself”; the last line is “I stop somewhere waiting for you.” Taking into account all that you have learned of the poet’s character and the range of his poetry, tell what you think the last words of poem Number 52 reveal about Whitman’s purpose in writing “Song of Myself.”
6. Reread the Whitman poems, including the collection opener, and review your reading notes. Then, sum up the themes restated in the coda to “Song of Myself.”
7. Suppose you had to select a line or word from Whitman’s works to characterize him. Which line(s) or word(s) from these excerpts from “Song of Myself” would you select, and why?
8. What ties do you see between Baca’s poem (See Connections) and Whitman’s poems? Consider each poet’s style and message.
9. You’ve already studied some of the American poets who preceded Whitman—Poe (Collection 6), Longfellow (Collection 4), Bryant (Collection 4), and other Romantics. Based on what you know about the work of these earlier poets, what do you think Whitman means when he describes his own poetry as his “barbaric yawp” (line 3)?
10. Some readers of this poem have further taken the meaning of “barbaric yawp” to refer to the way Europeans might have viewed the “American experiment” of democracy. What do you think?