Specimen Days: Home-Made Music

"And there sweetly rose those voices up to the high, whitewash'd wooden roof, and pleasantly the roof sent it all back again."


Whitman conveys the motions of inward and outward within this simple log of a choir of nurses. It is like the breath of the voices brings security or.. relief in the patrons watching the performance by moving through them. I don't think he finds it coincidence that one of the soldiers he was watching, that was severely injured, happened to feel at ease that night. Maybe this outlook or mood wasn't true for the setting, but Whitman's perceptions of the night seem to relay similar ideas of appreciation, seen in Song of Myself.

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches unnamable ardors from my breast,
It throbs me to gulps of the farthest down horror,
It sails me...I dab with bare feet...they are licked by the indolent waves,
I am exposed...cut by bitter and poisoned hail,
Steeped amid honeyed morphine...my windpipe squeezed in the fakes of death,
Let up again to feel the puzzles of puzzles,
And that we call Being.


When speaking of the opera within the poem Song of Myself, Whitman describes his body as convulsing, throbbing, sailing, steeping, squeezing, whirling... all because of this inward movement from the voices. It portrays the up and down heaving, continuous motion. At the end of the verse he defines this motion as "that we call Being." I think he finds some sort of liveliness, not actual living things but what keeps us living, within certain moments like this... or maybe in every moment. Something that is always present that he is able to appreciate, that keeps us continuously moving up and down, back and forward, in and out... Maybe it is brought out the most by the vibrations of the voice. Maybe he believes we are most human and alive when we express the vibrations of the body, or act through our bodies and not our minds. It almost seems to reflect some sort of religious belief of some sort of constant presence like God, but... it's more than that. The feeling of almost death or fake death.. like morphine.. seems to be the highest form of pleasure here. Maybe we are the most alive when we feel as if we're dying. 

Favorite Song of Myself Lines

"Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him;"
"You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life."

The first line is not necessarily a favorite, but it sparked the most obtainable thought while reading the poem. As a writer, a current fear of mine is not being able to capture humanity in... any way. Here, Whitman reveals an understanding of the human race: that we obtain the emotion of hate. It would be easy for someone upon writing a poem about, to put it lamely, acceptance to only address the good and civil side of humanity and nature in order to persuade the reader toward some sort of opinion. Whitman isn't trying to persuade anybody, and we see that in this line. He is trying to reveal his ideology behind existence, and in doing so, does not deny the human as a whole. "...ready in my madness to knife him;" What a startling frame of emotion, but very real. And the placement of the line is what I admired the most, for it is part of a vision he sees, I believe to be his perfect reality, or dream existence, which he is basically saying already exists.

The second line is one of those cheesy, self-inspiring favorites that is used to motivate etc. One could take it on a surface level of 'follow your dreams' or 'start living your life' but I think Whitman isn't trying to advocate change here. He is trying to say that we must make it a habit to enjoy what already exists in our lives. Everything "dazzles" the way it is, it just takes attention, "the light," to appreciate and find it. Open up to the possibility of greatness. If we really are all the same and connected.. then we are as great as the greatest person we individually believe to exist, so the 'greatness' is already there, we just have to pay attention to it and understand.

Wilmot Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso would have ended current slavery as well as any possible slavery in the future in all gained territory during the Mexican-American war. This seems to be a hopeful yet disillusioned standpoint to hold for the current state of the country was not unified when it came to the opinions of slavery. Although, this mind set does not seem to be unpopular of the times for Whitman proves it ten folds in his poem Song of Myself. He seeks unification throughout America, striving to find commonality in an "American" way of life that the North and South were battling to define themselves. If anything, the grounds of unification came from the acceptance that the South would carry on with slavery while the North did not. 

Although, what could have been successful for both the Wilmot Proviso and Whitman was their acceptance of the past and present and attempt to focus on changing the future American frame of mind.

 "The past and present wilt...I have filled them and emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future."

[Leaves of Grass, 43]

There was no addressment of the past actions on slavery with the Proviso, there was no provisions for the ending of present slavery, just possible future additions to America that should start out with an equal mind set. And all Whitman was trying to do was to find the equality amongst the American people; not to call out any 'sinners' but to move toward greater and grander fluidity, outward and beyond. 

Both Proviso and Whitman look to the future for commonality throughout the country; creating a linear path, or at the very least the option for one. They may have been desperate measures, but were most definitely good intentioned. 

-Tracy Gregory